Wide awake in hell, talking to Antichrist

“Every time the veil is lifted from the time of death to the time of resurrection, or what we call that intermediate time, you find people, when the Bible speaks about it, as being conscious of what’s going on around them,” explains Jordan.

“In Revelation 6, for one example, you’ve got some people who’ve been martyred. They wouldn’t take ‘the mark of the beast,’ they testified for the gospel of the kingdom and they were killed. They were decapitated; they were martyred for their faith.

“Revelation 6:9-11 says, [9] And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:
[10] And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?
[11] And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.

“You see how he says, ‘I see their souls under the altar’? Now, is what he’s going to see, is it going to be a big dormitory with everybody’s snoring and cutting ZZZZs? Verse 10 makes clear they’re awake; they’re conscious of what’s going on.

“Verse 11 says they’re each given a white robe. Now you know if somebody handed you a robe, you’d get a look at it and see, ‘Does this thing fit? Yeah, I think it does.’

“They get these things on and that’s conscious activity! And they’re told, ‘Now rest a little.’ What does that mean? That they’re going to go take a nap? No, it’s talking about just quit being concerned and worrying about it; God’s on His time schedule. The prophetic clock is ticking. It’s a, ‘Don’t worry; just chill out,’ kind of a thing.

“My point is, when you see saints between the time of their death and awaiting resurrection, you see them conscious, not only of the immediate surroundings but of things going on in other places.

*****

“In Isaiah 14, you see the same thing’s true about hell. What you have is a prophetic picture of the future. At the end of the tribulation period, when the Antichrist has been brought low and destroyed, you’ll see in verse 4, ‘That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!’

“They’re mocking the Antichrist as he’s taken out and cast out into the bottomless pit. Notice verse 9: 'Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.'

“It says hell from beneath is MOVED to meet thee! Have you ever thought about what kind of welcome the pope gets when he dies and goes to hell? Unsaved people say, ‘Well, I go to hell and I’ll have a lot of friends!’ Yeah, they’ll all be just like you. That’s going to be wild crowd, isn’t it?

“When it says hell is moved ‘to meet thee at thy coming,’ they’re not coming to shake hands and pat you on the back and say, ‘Boy, we’re just glad you’re here! Har, har, har! C’mon, we got a game going in the back room!’

“The verse says ‘it stirreth up the dead for thee.’ These people are wide awake, moving around and talking, and yet they’re in hell. Hell is where people go from the time they die until the resurrection at the Great White Throne judgment when death and hell is cast into the lake of fire.

“Hell is like the county jail where they go until they’re taken and sentenced and then sent to the Big House. They’re not unconscious in hell; the reality will be MORE consciousness, greater consciousness, not less or no consciousness.

“They’re wide awake, they know what’s going on and they’re ready to go out and greet the Antichrist when he shows up and they’re going to talk to him.”

Nothing new or sophisticated here:

“All I did on the radio program this morning was go over verse after verse about the message Paul preaches being a secret and several people came up to me after the service and said, ‘Boy, that was a powerful radio program this morning!’ " recalls Jordan in an old study.

“It’s easy as pie to make a program like that. All you got to do is read the verses. But isn’t it interesting how different it sounds? Did you listen to the guy who comes on after us? I can take about seven minutes of him and then I have to turn him off. They got beautiful music and this guy's got the exquisite elocution but, boy, what he’s saying is just stinko. It just doesn’t get it.

*****

“Jesus Christ’s ministry in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John was exclusively to the nation Israel, but as soon as you say that, somebody says, ‘Well, wait a minute, if His ministry was just to Israel, why does He say in John 3:16, For God so loved the WORLD?’

“Well, let me ask you a question. Why does He say in Matthew 10:5, the so-called Great Commission, ‘No, no, you 12 don’t go to the world’? The verse says, ‘These twelve Jesus sent forth, and commanded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not.’

*****

“You see, if you don’t rightly divide your Scripture, that Book can be confusing; that Book can be a mess. You never will figure out your Bible.

“You’ll be just like the fellow recently who told me that when He got saved He went to church, rejoicing and all happy about getting saved, and the preacher said at the end of the service, ‘We’re going to have church again tonight and you need to be here,’ and proceeded to quote Hebrews 10:25: [25] Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

“You’ve heard that verse used by thousands of people to say you ought to go to church. But this brother said, ‘I sat in the pew and read down past Hebrews 10:25, and verses 26-29 had me thinking I could lose my salvation!’

“This brother went up to the preacher and told him, ‘I thought you said I couldn’t lose my salvation?!,’ and he responded, ‘What are you reading them verses for?!’ 

"Well, you know, dumb stupid me that I would read that verse and want to know what else is in the passage for me.

“You see, this smorgasbord thing where you go along and pick out whatever you like won’t work when you study the Bible. You’ve got to be able to ‘rightly divide the word of truth,’ and if you don’t, it’s just going to be confusion.

“No wonder the world thinks that tradition and scholarship ought to set the pace and not the Bible. No wonder people think you can’t just let the Bible tell you what it says and let it mean what it says and that be it. No wonder people won’t let the words on the page in their Bible change and revolutionize their life.

“Why would you want to risk changing your life for something that you couldn’t trust?! You’d be nuttier than a fruit cake. But if it was something you could trust, you’d be WISE.

*****

“In Matthew 15, The Syrophoenician Woman cries to Jesus to heal her daughter ‘but he answered her not a word,’ and His disciples begged Him, ‘Send her away; for she crieth after us.’ And then, as verse 24 says, ‘He answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

“You better settle it once and for all, if John 3:16 is all you know in the Bible, there’s some other stuff you better consider.

“If John 4:42, about how Christ is ‘the Saviour of the world,’ is all you know, there’s something else you ought to consider.

“If that’s all there is, why did Christ forbid His disciples to go to the Gentiles and why did He Himself refuse to help one? She was the only Gentile woman who ever came to Him for help and He refuses her and says to His disciples, ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.’

*****

“The answer to John 3:16 is verse simple. God had made a covenant with Abraham and told him that, ‘In thy seed shall all the nations be blessed.’ God’s covenant and promise was that through redeemed Israel His redemption and salvation would go to the nations.

“Never think that in the prophetic program, in the earthly ministry of Christ, Gentile salvation wasn’t the ultimate goal, but Israel was to be the channel of blessing.

“In Zachariah 8:23, it says, ‘In those days it shall come to pass, that ten men shall take hold out of all languages of the nations, even shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you: for we have heard that God is with you.

“Isaiah 2 says that out of Jerusalem the Word of God would go and that 'all the nations would flow unto it.' But it was through Israel’s ministry that the nations were to be brought to Christ. When you arrive in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, was Israel ready to do that?

“When the Magi came seeking Him that is born King of the Jews, going to Jerusalem to seek the Messiah through Israel . . . when Herod hears about Him that’s born King of the Jews, Matthew 2:3 says, ‘When Herod the king had heard these things, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.’ They weren’t happy to know their Messiah had come. They didn’t care anything about Him.

“You want to know why somebody out here in the world around you today--why they’ve got no interest in Christ or God’s things? . . . No interest in anything that’s going to help and just say, ‘Agh, that’s just a bunch of baloney. Get away from me; I don’t want any part of that. It’s not for me.’

“They go on in their darkness, just beating themselves against the wall, bloody and battered, and you plead, ‘You know, I’ve got an answer for you,’ and they just respond, ‘I’m not interested. I don’t want any. Leave me alone.’

“You think they’re nuts, but Israel was doing the same thing back there. That’s human nature. People been doing that since Genesis 3. You’re not anything new and sophisticated.”

Only love answers 'How?'

Paul advises in II Corinthians 10:5, “Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

“The warfare we’re in with the Adversary today is a spiritual battle that gets fought in your inner man,” says Jordan. “That’s why you need to keep your mind and your ears tuned like a laser. Just like your tongue can taste the difference in meats, your ear needs to be able to hear that message . . . The key is to win the battle for the mind because that’s where the conflict’s ALWAYS at.

"Paul asks the Galatians in Galatians 3:3: ‘Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’

“You see all this performance stuff, all this activity aimed at the physical outward external stuff, is backwards. Satan works through your body into your soul and then into your spirit. God works in your spirit out through your soul, manifested in your body. So where’s the real battle? It’s going to be in the spirit of our minds.

“Paul says, 'Go over and grab all those vain imaginations; all those things you project in your mind, dream up or have other people put into your thinking.’ The course of this world is ‘bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop’--constantly.

“He’s saying, ‘Take that stuff and just throw it out the window!’ Imagine yourself on the third floor of a building and watch it go 'splat' on the pavement.

*****

“ ‘Bringing every thought into captivity.’ You see, you’re to renew your mind to develop a positive habit of BELIEVING what God says. Develop a positive habit in your mind that says, ‘I am beloved of the Father.’

“When I bring my thinking into captivity to the grace and love of God given to me through the Crosswork of Jesus Christ, I’ll be free from self-occupation--free from thinking about me and my stuff--and I’ll start thinking about me and HIS stuff. In fact, I’ll just start thinking about His stuff.

“And that’s when you find rest in the Father’s love. And it won’t just be a theological point and a doctrinal statement to say, ‘God loves you.’ It’ll be something that comes into your intimate experience moment by moment.

*****

“When you’re trusting your performance, what do you get? You get failure. There are ONLY TWO CHOICES, folks, when it comes to effectually changing your life. One is law and one is grace. You either believe the law changes you or you believe love changes you.

“Let me tell you this, simply warning people to change can’t change them. Giving people reasons for changing, for doing what’s right and for avoiding what’s wrong, doesn’t change them.

“You get to Romans 7 and look at Paul’s description of the life of a Believer lived under the law and it’s very clear that the law endorses the need for change but is powerless to produce it. That’s not its job description.

“The job description of the law is to point out failure. That’s why it gives the rules and regulations and the demand for perfection so it can hold up the mirror and say, ‘See, you can’t do it. You’re not perfect. You need a Savior.'

“Have you ever seen somebody headed for a mess and you begin to give them reasons why they shouldn’t do it? Think about yourself. You got all these reasons not to do something and you do it anyway.

“You see, reasons only answer the question of ‘Why?’ Why should I not do this and why should I do that. You need motivation to answer the ‘How?’

“What is it actually that causes you to love God? Is it Him telling you, ‘Love me,’ or do we love Him because He first loved us? Where does love for Him really come from? It’s His love for us that motivates our love for Him.

“That’s why I John 4:10 says, ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.’ It says, ‘We love Him, because He first loved us.’ ”

Reality found in 'space between'

“Satan has a religious system to catch you; in the Dispensation of Grace it’s called legalism. It’s an external operating system where what’s out there is where you think God’s working and where you think you’ll find His revelation. Christians reason, ‘What’s out there is the way I know God’s value and esteem for me, so what I need to do is produce stuff out there,’ rather than being ‘strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man’ and having the identity God gives you inside of you live out through you.”—Pastor Richard Jordan.

*****

From the beginning courses in journalism, the student is taught to listen for the main thrust of what a speaker is trying to convey, express, teach, etc., in any given speech, lecture, interview, etc. The key is take what they say at face value.

In a study I have on tape, Detroit-area preacher Tom Bruscha, someone who has been in the ministry for three-plus decades, makes the point, “Do you realize most of Christendom is spending all their Christian life trying to get ‘rooted and grounded in the love of God’?" (Eph. 3:17)

Bruscha explains, “Instead of being on the mountain peak, looking out and comprehending what God is doing, Christians spend all their time trying to figure out, ‘Am I really saved? Am I really forgiven? Does God really still love me?’ ”

“It’s when you just study and BELIEVE what God’s love has done for you, and how God IS part of your life, and what God IS going to do in you, that you then see that is YOU BEING rooted and grounded. Paul’s writing as if you can ALREADY be rooted and built up! Colossians says the same thing.”

*****

A fascinating op-ed column in the New York Times, “Your Brain Lies to You,” described how the phenomenon known as “source amnesia” leads people to forget whether or not a statement is true.

“Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true,” informs the article. “With time, this misremembering only gets worse. A false statement from a non-credible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength.”

Obviously, there are easily identified biblical implications. This is why you hear such outrageously untrue statements about what the Bible really says. But people listen to other people’s lies and don’t remember what they once knew as fact from God’s Word.

*****

In the Bible, truth is more than just being right all the time; it’s the ultimate basis of reality. What makes what’s real? God.

“You know that coffee table is solid, but at the atomic and sub-atomic level it isn’t,” explains Jordan. “Well, what’s reality really made of? In Scripture, the ultimate source of what’s real—not illusionary, but what’s real—is who God is.

“There's the Indiana Jones movie where, at the end, everything resolves itself. They figure out the mystery they’re looking for in the crystal and Indy asks, ‘Well, did they go out into space?’ The other guy says, ‘Yes, the space between things.’

“You know what he’s talking about is not outer space. You take an atom

and it’s got all these neutrons, protons and electrons that circle. Well, what’s between all that?

*****

“The first thing to understand is that life doesn’t begin in your emotions. Your emotions are the part of your makeup that God gave you to be motivators of your will. The way you’re made by God to function is in response to decisions that your will makes.

“Too often we live under the tyranny of emotional revolt because our emotions, as dumb and as uneducated as they are . . . Do you realize your emotions are just dumb as posts?!

“Your emotions think anything your mind is thinking is true. Anything your mind thinks, you project on the screen of your thought processes and your emotions think is true.

“That’s why you cry when you see a sad movie. It’s only a movie. You know it’s not real, but you project it into the visualization of your mind and your emotions respond as though it were true.

“Your emotions are designed to respond. e-MOTION. That’s what the word is. Most of that word is the word motion. And God has built you so that there’s a part of your inner man that is designed to put into motion the things that your heart and your mind have chosen to do.

“But the order is 'facts first.' Then you have to have faith in the facts. And once you have faith in the facts, it will produce fruit. And the fruit will then produce the feeling.

“You have to have it in that order, because until your faith rests in the reality of the facts, those facts can never go to work in your life. They’ll just be rolling around in your head. When your faith rests in them, your faith in those facts releases the power of that truth and it 'works effectually in you that believe.' ”

*****

“A huge turning point in a person’s Christian walk is when they realize that it isn’t really what’s done for Christ that’s the issue; it’s really that, ‘I’m in Christ and He’s in me and it isn’t what I’m doing for Him; it’s His life in me that’s the real issue.’

“At some point in my ministry I figured out that no matter what I did, and no matter how hard I worked at it, tomorrow I could look back and say, ‘Boy, I could’ve done better yesterday.’ It was along in there that I began to realize it’s really not what I do for the Lord, striving and being on the treadmill, thinking, ‘I gotta get there and I gotta accomplish that.’

“The Christian life is really Him in you, living out through you. Now that’s wonderful to understand in theory, but you’re like I am and we’re both like Paul was in Romans 7.

“He said, ‘To will is with me. I got all the will you want; my problem isn’t will power, my problem is want power. Because the good I would do, I don’t, and the evil that I don’t want to do, I do. How to perform I can’t find.’

“The answer to that, in Paul’s case, was it wasn’t in what he was doing. He’s saying that, ‘What I’m going to do isn’t going to be the issue. The answer is in, ‘Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.’ There’s the how to perform!"

Only reality to RELY on

The underpinnings the Protestant Reformation gave to the last 500 years of Western culture--dominating the culture of the planet for the last half of a millennium—are decimated. As Psalm 11:3 says, “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The answer is they go the way of the world just like everybody else.

“The reality is we have so much liberty, freedom—economically, socially, politically—that the world can be in chaos and we can just turn on (a TV sitcom)  and forget about it,” says Jordan. “Most of the people in the world can’t do that. I’ve been in many places in the world where when they go to bed at night, you know what momma’s worrying about? What she’s going to feed the kids for lunch tomorrow.

“The thing God is most concerned about for you is freedom. That’s what faith is all about. Faith is the ability for you to have the absolute complete freedom in your inner person to do exactly what you choose to do. Without that personal privacy, you can’t make a free choice and God loves freedom. He loved it so much He was willing to risk it—risk His whole plan in creation by giving you freedom.

*****

“You know what He wants out of you? All He wants is your trust. He wants you to trust Him. He wants you to believe Him. He wants you to rely on Him.

“When God put Adam and Eve in the Garden and said, ‘Don’t eat of that tree,’ He wanted them just to trust Him, saying, ‘He’s got our best interest at heart and if He says don’t do that, He’s got a good reason for it and we’re just going to trust Him.’

“The whole problem with Adam and Eve is they came to the place where they didn’t trust God. Genesis 3:22 says, ‘And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever.’

“But they didn’t know good and evil because they were TRUSTING God to know it! They no longer trusted God’s Word about it. The problem was they weren’t trusting.

"God wants your trust, folks. He just wants you to rely on Him. That’s why Paul says, [28] Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

*****

“Romans 16:25 says, ‘Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.’

“Paul’s information is designed to make you grow up spiritually, and if you don’t get this verse you’re never going to grow up spiritually. You’re always going to be a little spiritual pygmy; a spiritual baby over here on milk. You’re never going to be an adult who eats meat, sits at the table and does work for God on an adult basis.

“He says the ‘preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery.’ It’s HE who has to be related to! You see the relationship is to Him, not just to a bunch of doctrines, creeds, rites and thinking patterns. I’ve got a relationship with HIM!

“Galatians 4:19 says, [19] My little children, of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. What’s Paul want to live in you?

“Roman 4:16 says, [16] Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

“The dependence is to be on who God has made you in Christ. That is your TOTAL dependence on Him—that’s what faith is all about!

*****

“Paul warns in Colossians 2:8, [8] Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.

“Any system that takes you away from just resting in Christ, he says ‘beware,’ and we’re watching one of the great sea changes in global history. You need a foundation that’s built on truth and can I tell you, as the world whirls around there’s nobody else ever going to show up like Jesus Christ.

“The one thing you’ve got that’s different from everybody else is you’ve got the ONE PERSON who IS the truth. Truth in the Bible is not, ‘Well, I’m right and you’re wrong.’ Truth in the Bible is reality.

“What is the source of ultimate reality? What’s the real deal here? Paul says, ‘We look at thing not seen because things seen are temporal.’ They’re not what’s real. The things that are NOT seen are eternal. How do you get in touch with that? The only way is by faith. But you have to have faith in what ultimate reality is and that’s who Jesus Christ is.

“That’s why it’s not a thing and a theology and something you’re doing. It’s something outside of you—it’s in a PERSON. It’s in God HIMSELF. And when God stepped out of heaven and took upon Himself humanity in the person of Jesus Christ . . . when the eternal God become the God-man in the man Christ Jesus He gave you the ability to reach out and make God tangible and get a hold of Him and He’s the BRIDGE.

“The issue is preaching Christ, making Him the issue. That’s why Paul says, [5] For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus' sake.

*****

“Paul’s favorite subject was the Lord Jesus Christ. The Word in the Bible is called edification. It’s building up that doctrine in your understanding that really is the mind of Christ. If you want to know somebody, you really need to know their mind, don’t you?”

“You know, you can’t look at somebody and tell what they’re thinking. I know you think you can but you really can’t. Until a person speaks their mind, you don’t know their mind. You have the mind of Christ. If you’re going to know a person, that’s how you know him/her.

“I Corinthians 2:15-16 says, [15] But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.
[16] For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

“How do you have the mind of Christ? It’s in His Word. Paul says it is ‘God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.’ How does He work in you to will and do His good pleasure? By having ‘Christ be formed in you.’ ”

Next 3 years decides who you'll be

“We’re living today, 2017, in the most impactful decade of the life of anybody alive,” reminded Pastor Richard Jordan in a Sunday study the other week that happened to coincide with Super Bowl 51 and Lady Gaga’s satanic ritual halftime show in which she’s said to have “channeled Lucifer” and all.

“I don’t care how old you are--you can be my age or you can be as young as my grandchildren--this decade RIGHT NOW is going to be the decade that sets the course for the next 80-100 years afterward. That has to do with the cycle of nations that God set up in Genesis 8-10. We just happen to be in that cycle right now.

“How you come out of this wintertime into the spring is up for grabs. It’s up for grabs during the winter.

“When trouble, testing, difficulties come, what they test is ‘tribulation works patience,’ and having this information (in II Timothy)--having it erected in your inner man, having that edifice built up--will give you the capacity to handle whatever comes.

“They test whether you will be patient and stick with the truth of God’s Word, and evaluate the things (going to happen) based on what His Word says about them, or whether you’re going to go off in the vanity of your own mind; your own resources and thinking where you start thinking like lost people think.

“If you don’t have that sound understanding, then the Word of God will be of very little benefit to you. If you don’t know how to rightly divide the Word . . . Paul says in II Timothy 2, ‘Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.
[8] Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel.’

“The understanding comes through thinking the way God thinks. In Ephesians 4:17, Paul writes, [17] This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
[18] Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
[19] Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
[20] But ye have not so learned Christ;
[21] If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

*****

“So the way you avoid that completely self-oriented, self-fixed, arrogant life of sinful pursuit, described in verse 19, is by learning Christ; hearing Him.

“Now, notice he writes in verse 17, ‘This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord.’ Paul’s saying, ‘I’m telling you this, and this is part of the message God gave ME!’

“Look at what he says in verse 20. How were they taught by Christ? They didn’t see Jesus in His earthly ministry. They heard Christ speaking to them through Paul. They were taught by Christ THROUGH Paul. Now, my point is, you can’t have a life that’s going to produce victory over your old sinful life except you hear what Paul teaches.

“You go back to what Moses taught, or what Christ in His earthly ministry taught, and it won’t produce victory; it won’t produce a successful Christian life.

“When I think about that, listen, if you don’t take what God through Paul gives to us, the way He gives it to us, you might as well hang up your cleats and go fishing. Because you’re going to make void the Word of God. You’re going to follow the commandments of men and in vain you’re going to seek to serve the Lord.”

*****

As Keith Blades writes in his book, Satan and His Plan of Evil, “Satan seeks most of all to drown the ‘hidden wisdom of God’ in a quagmire of doctrinal confusion, chaos and uncertainty . . .

“When he is able to produce among Christ’s members such ignorance of His ‘manifold wisdom,’ and such contrariness in their own conduct to the program God’s actually administering in this dispensation, Satan is able to convincingly slander, ridicule and defame the ‘new creation’ in the heavenly places.

“In this Satan gloats and exults. He is able in all of this to display both to himself, and his own cohorts in the heavenly places, his manipulative powers. He shows them that he is able to successfully deceive and lead about the members of Christ’s own body, as effectively as if they were still his own. Upon doing this his wounded pride comforts itself . . .

“Only by keeping Christians from knowing the very thing they need to know, and rejoice in so as to make that designed impact, is Satan able to hinder any such impact from being made at all.

"That he is clearly engaged in keeping Christians ignorant of what they ought to know is described by Paul, for example, in Ephesians 4:14: ‘That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.’ ”

Peace like a river

When the Bible talks about "rivers of living water flowing" out of the Believer, it’s really talking about God the Holy Spirit. Living water and rivers are symbols of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus Christ promises in John 7: 38, "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

“You can have water as dew or as rain, but here it’s living water in the sense it is flowing,” says Jordan. “Water represents the effectiveness and efficiency of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The living water represents the life that’s in Christ; the life the Messiah will provide.

*****

“Rivers are often used in Scripture to demonstrate the mission of the Spirit of God. Isaiah 48:18 says, ‘O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.’

“The peace of God comes from your faith resting in the truth of God’s Word, which then allows the Spirit of God to produce the fruit of love, joy, peace.

“Isaiah 41:17-18 says, ‘When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
[18] I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.’

“He’s going to quench the thirst of the thirsty, meaning He’s going to satisfy the hearts of Israel. You see the descriptions there that kind of match what Christ says in John 7?

“Look at Psalm 36:8 and Psalm 42:1. The blessings God gave Israel will flow Israel out to the needy and it will be like a river, and when someone comes and drinks of the river, he is satisfied and finds peace. You can go on and on and on with the (analogies).

*****

“Jeremiah 2:13 says, ‘For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.’

“The fountain is sort of like an artesian well; it flows naturally, you can’t stop it. A cistern is a bucket you hold water in, but their bucket’s got a hole in it. They’ve forsaken God and they got buckets that can’t hold water.

“That’s a description of the spiritual condition the nation is in. But who is ‘the fountain of living waters’? God is; He’s the source.

“What Jesus Christ is doing in John 7 when He talks about how ‘out of his belly shall flow living waters,’ is He’s literally reaching back into Jeremiah, taking a symbol and describing what they’ve forsaken.

*****

“I once wrote down every verse in the Bible about rivers. Rivers start out in Genesis 2. There are four named in Eden and each one has a specific relationship to the land.

“The better known rivers include the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Jordan. There’s the rivers of Babylon and Chadar and every river in the Bible has something specific, something special connected with it. There’s a spiritual identity connected with it.

“Rivers are used to represent spiritual truth. Psalm 1 says the godly man ‘shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.’

“One of the things a river does in the Bible is help a godly man produce fruit. Well, isn’t that exactly what the Holy Spirit does? He produces ‘the fruit of the Spirit.’

*****

“Hebrews 4:12 tells us ‘the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’

“When it says it’s powerful, that means it’s energetic; it’s got a transforming dynamic in its life that will transform you from the inside. It changes your attitudes, which changes your actions. It transforms your heart and renews your mind.

“The word ‘quick’ in the verse means it’s alive, but don’t be so quick to jump over the ‘quick’ concept because the word ‘alive’ means it’s functioning in every part. The Word of God doesn’t function lethargically. It’s not that it functions eventually.

“What’s in view is that it’s in a state of activity. The word 'function' has the idea of being able to respond without hesitation and delay. God’s Word will respond to your faith quickly. It’s alive, and when you believe it, it works!

“It doesn’t take six months to work. It will work the moment you believe it. That’s why it says ‘quick.’ It’ll do it NOW! The part about the ‘quick’ I like is I didn’t have to do anything but believe it and it worked!

“God isn’t waiting on me to do something; He’s just waiting on me to BELIEVE it! The Word becomes the sustaining internal compulsion with the life of Jesus Christ that gives VICTORY.”

“The biblical definition of the word ‘submit’ is ‘to give your heart over to another person’s will.' Sub is under. You put yourself under them. You give your heart over to another’s will. That’s the challenge; that’s the dare of love. It’s the dare of faith. And if you dare to do it by faith, because God said to do it, you’ve made the decision based upon the truth of what God’s Word is.”

(new article tomorrow)

Holy Ghost: 'This is where IT's at!'

The Bible term “Holy Ghost” is God + Host combined into one word. When God comes to live in a person, the part of the anatomy He resides in is the spirit.

“God is a spirit and the reason He gave humans a spirit (along with our body and soul) was so He could touch us, and the connection we have with God is in our spirit,” says Preacher Richard Jordan. “The references to Spirit and Holy Spirit are references to the function of the person. That’s kind of a close thing but you’re looking for the emphasis of the text and that’s why it’s that way.

“When that term is used about this ‘third person of the godhead,’ the emphasis every time in the text is on His person; the person who dwells in you who’s connected to you. When you find Him referred to as the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s being talked about, you’ll find the text’s referring to His activity in relationship to you.

“You know how you discover that? You start looking at where the Spirit’s referred to as ‘it.’ Why would He say ‘it’? It’s that THAT’S the function. Paul tells us, ‘The spirit itself maketh intercession.’ What’s He talking about? The function of the Holy Spirit.

“By the way, He doesn’t CAUSE you; you’re ‘being filled’ isn’t one of instant ‘speak as the Spirit gives you utterance,’ but it’s as you appropriate by FAITH God’s Word. So it’s an indirect empowerment through faith in His Word. It’s important to follow these things.”

*****

“I hope we recognize that the Holy Spirit is a real person; it’s not an influence, not an idea, not a philosophical system, not a force, not a power,” says Preacher Alex Kurz. “I hope you don’t think ‘walking after the Spirit’ is some kind of New Age concept where we’re walking after some nebulous metaphysical force, influence or unidentifiable thing. When the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost, He’s as real a person as the Father and the Son!

“In Acts 5:3-4, Peter says, ‘Ananias, you lied to the Holy Ghost.’ And then he says in the next verse, ‘You didn’t lie to men; you lied to God.’ Verse 3 says ‘Holy Ghost’ and the next verse says ‘God.’ I took algebra; what we know from this is the Holy Ghost is God. He’s a person, a member of the godhead.

“I Corinthians 2 says, [9] But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.
[10] But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’

“Question. Is there any possible way for you to know anything about God via this self-generated, self-initiated, introspective, subjective ‘moving of the heart’? Your heart cannot know anything about God. Jeremiah says, ‘The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?’

“God doesn’t use the eye; He does not use this external, visible, scientific . . . God does not use the scientific approach when it comes to knowing God.

*****

“Paul writes in Romans 8, [1] There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit . . .
[4] That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
[5] For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
[6] For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

“Walking after the Spirit is just meditating, reflecting upon, minding the things of the Spirit and the one all-consuming passion of God the Holy Spirit is what Jesus Christ is doing and we’re invited now to let Him lead us.

“Romans 8:16 says, ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.’

“The Holy Spirit is consumed in telling us what Jesus Christ achieved on our behalf, and if we’re going to walk after the Spirit, we’re going to MIND those things, and the more we mind the things of the Spirit, the more we learn all about those details.

*****

“Verse 2 says, ‘For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.’

“You understand what a law in science is? In a law, at what speed does an object drop? If you drop an object 10 million times, will it always fall at the same rate? Yep, that’s an established law.

“The idea of a law is it’s an established, fixed rule. An established, fixed rule is, ‘You sin and the consequences are death. ‘The wages of sin is death.’ Whether it’s literal, spiritual or functional, it’s death, death, death.’

“So what’s the purpose of the Holy Spirit? Hey, He’s made us FREE! We don’t live under the operating system of that sin debt. We’re living ‘in newness of life.’ Verse 3 says, ‘For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.’

“The Holy Spirit is preoccupied with who you are and what you have in Jesus Christ. That’s what He’s thinking about. And if we want to walk after Him, where are we thinking? We’re minding the same things.”

*****

“Let’s get rid of all of the Christian silliness about what it means to be walking ‘after the Spirit.’ It’s not all this craziness you hear about being moved or having impressions—inner impulses, burning desires, feelings, sentiments.

“In Acts 2, we see some Holy Spirit-produced activity and it’s supernatural—visions, dreams, tongues, etc.—but when we’re introduced to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8, we don’t see any of that. We’re focused on, ‘What are you THINKING about?’

“Paul prays in II Corinthians 13:14, ‘The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen.’

“It’s not YOUR love for Him; it’s ‘the love of God.’ Remember Romans 5:5: ‘And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.’

“He wants you to live and be possessed by His unconditional acceptance of you and His unconditional love of you; the highest regard the God of the universe could ever have towards you. That’s where we’re supposed to be dwelling. It’s supposed to possess our thinking.

*****

“Are you having communion with the Holy Ghost? What does it mean to have COMMON UNION; notice it’s communication? Are you having communion with the PERSON of the godhead? It isn’t to be ‘slain in the Spirit’ via some strange experience as the result of your praying in the closet and then, ‘Kaboom!’

“How do I enjoy this deep fellowship and common union with the Spirit? If I’m preoccupied with the things He’s preoccupied with, guess what I’m having?

“Here’s one illustration in Exodus 25:22: ‘And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.’

“How is Jehovah God going to commune with Moses? He says, ‘I’m going to give you some information, Moses, that you will now transmit and entrust to the nation Israel.’

“It means we lend a listening ear, hopefully two ears. Jesus Christ in the Book of Isaiah says, ‘I have given mine ear as the learned.’ God the Father is instructing His Son in the ways of edification.

“I cannot mind the things of the Spirit, according to what the Scriptures teach, unless He’s telling me something.

*****

“Communing with the Holy Ghost is objective. It’s via an objective means of communicating and revealing information. It’s not through some whispered voice. You’ve heard this one: ‘I heard the voice of God speaking to me.’

“You know, why do people resort to those kinds of crazy clichés instead of just study, ‘What saith the Scripture?’

“Philippians 2:1-2 says, ‘If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
[2] Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.’

*****

“Paul says in Ephesians 5:18, 'And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.'

“Why would Paul make that kind of a connection? You understand what alcohol ultimately does? It takes control. It begins to possess you; it influences you. It distorts reality.

"Paul says, ‘Don’t be drunk with (the lusts of the flesh), but instead be saturated, be consumed, be intoxicated with the Spirit.’

“The Spirit of Almighty God is consumed in the glorious eternal achievements of Jesus Christ, who did it ALL FOR FREE FOR WHO? For YOU! You don’t think that excites God?!

"Oh, you better believe, when God can take 'earthen vessels'; those of us who were consigned to Satan himself for Satan’s own personal use, and give us LIFE . . .

“And the Holy Spirit is so fired up and excited, He’s busting at the seams! The things that excite God the Holy Spirit are the things we have in Jesus Christ, and the Spirit just enjoys revealing, through the objective, authoritative source of Scripture, all the glorious details. . . 

"He says, ‘Look what you got! Look at who you are! Look at WHO you have! Look at what’s going to happen to you!’ ” 

Three-headed predecessors

A survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found that more than 10 percent of Americans think Noah's wife was Joan of Arc. Imagine if the same bunch had been asked about Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japheth. They might easily confuse them with The Three Stooges!

Shem is the progenitor of the nation Israel and Abraham is a descendant of Shem.

Jordan explains, “Who did God belong to? He said, ‘I’m the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob; I’m the God of Israel,’ and Shem and his lineage were given the responsibility to look after the spiritual issues of life. God’s Word is committed to Shem. God’s Son, when He comes, comes through the line of Shem.

“Anytime Japheth or Ham get to messing with religion they make a mess of things. Just check it out. But when Shem does it—all of the great world religions come from the descendants of Shem. It’s fascinating.

“Genesis 9:27 says, ‘God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan (Ham’s son) shall be his servant.’

“There are the three needs man has—spiritual, physical and intellectual. Shem is charged with meeting the spiritual needs; inner spiritual strength. Ham is charged with meeting the physical needs and skills to carry out the purposes. His focus is on technology. Japheth meets the intellectual needs.

“Descendants of Ham have been the great influencers of human history through invention and technology. In fact, the first great world civilizations were brought about in Egypt and Babylon and those are Ham’s descendants. Nimrod, one of Ham’s boys, establishes Babylon and Egypt; the great cradles of civilization.

“Japheth's the one who gives direction and purpose to things. He comes along and sort of takes from the other two and brings them together because Japheth is the facilitator. He’s the expander. He takes religion and develops it into a system of coordinated thinking. He develops theology."

******

I didn’t own my first car (a used red Dodge Omni hatchback) until I was a junior at Ohio State and so I relied on my bicycle. I remember cycling to the state fairgrounds one Saturday morning for an outdoor press event called by Ohio’s U.S. Sen. John Glenn, the famous astronaut.

I was wearing a pantsuit and dress shoes, representing Ohio State’s student newspaper The Lantern as one of its fledgling reporters. It was a hot day and sweat was rolling down my forehead as I pedaled right up to where the press conference was already under way and proceeded to lock my bike up to a nearby tree.

About a half-dozen professional journalists surrounded me and soon after Glenn began taking questions from the crowd, he singled me out, saying with a friendly smile, “How about you, miss? Do you have a question for me?”

I was taken totally off-guard. Suddenly, all eyes were upon me as I somehow managed to spit out a question I had memorized from the night before in prepping for the story. While I no longer remember the subject matter, I do remember how kind Glenn was toward me. Of course, he was a fellow Buckeye, having graduated from Ohio State.

No need to stay blind and dead

As my pastor often points out, neither God nor Satan blinds anyone from believing; the blindness is the consequence of a person not believing and willfully rejecting the truth. 

Paul states in II Corinthians 4:4, [4] In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

Paul writes in Ephesians 4, [17] This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
[18] Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart.

*****

The unsaved man’s body is called ‘the body of sin’ in Romans 6:6: [6] Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.

“Your sin nature is genetically present in your makeup and its seat of residence is your body and that’s where the function of depravity exists,” explains Jordan. “So your spirit is dead, your soul is dark and your body is the source and the seat of sin.

“Romans 6:17-18 says, [17] But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
[18] Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

“Before you got saved you were the servant of sin. Your soul was connected to an enslaved body; your old sin nature. Your life was dominated, controlled and dictated to by sin that dwelt in you.

“You willingly chose to go that way. The emotions and the different functions of your soul were tantalized and led about and pleased by what your flesh did, but the sin that dwelt in your body was the master of your life.

He says in verse 16, [16] Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? Jesus said, ‘Whosoever commits sin is the servant of sin.’

“The point in I Corinthians is he can’t get the things from God because he’s got a dead spirit that’s alienated from God’s life. He’s got a soul that can’t get anything anyway (no light, just stumbling around in the dark) and he’s got a depraved body that runs to this stuff just as hard and fast as it can go.

*****

“Now, your old sin nature has two facets to it; it’s got a bent to it. One way goes toward lasciviousness, or overt evil, and the other goes toward aestheticism, or human good. One will try for culture and religion and the other will just try to be contrary to the ‘good’ side of things.

“God won’t accept human good any more than He’ll accept human evil. Isaiah 64:6 says, [6] But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away. If they ever get a modern bible translation where that verse is translated literally, you won’t want me to quote it to you in the pulpit; you’d think I was being vulgar. That’s a strong passage.

“At Christmas time, why is that everybody is so nice? Because it’s an opportunity for people to do something nice and feel good about doing it. That’s true even among the wicked and what that is is there’s a part of their nature that wants to do it.

“Have you ever noticed there are two things the world honors? You take the most godless wicked reprobate in the world and he’ll still honor ignorance and innocence. Of course, there isn’t much of that in the world anymore.

“That unsaved man can’t get the things from God; he doesn’t qualify. But when he gets saved, God so radically changes him that he not only can receive the things of God and enjoy and understand them, he can literally live in and through Jesus Christ for God’s glory.

*****

“Paul says in Romans 6:11, [11] Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

“If you’re going to know God, you’re going to have to know Him through Jesus Christ. Everybody else is walking around in the dark. They’re like blind bats flying backwards in a dark cave. They can’t find anything except the wall they’ll hit one day.

“You can go to science and get all the evidence that there has to be a Creator and you’ll never find a Creator. The only place you’re going to find a Creator is in Jesus Christ. He tells you, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.’

“That’s why He’s ‘the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.’ But He wasn’t a capricious Creator; He didn’t just create all this stuff. The verse says it was ‘created BY Him and FOR Him.’ He had a purpose. Paul says in Colossians 1:17, ‘And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.’

“Notice the tremendous statement Paul just keeps making about who Christ is! If He’s before all things, then all things in creation--He was there before they showed up.

"That means He’s outside of creation. He’s outside of time. How can He be outside of creation? He can’t be a creature, that’s how. He’d have to be the Creator. That’s why John 1 says ‘[3] All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.’ ”

*****

“When it says ‘by him all things consist,’ it’s not talking about how Jesus is up in heaven saying, ‘Hold it together, Lord, hold it together.’ It’s not, ‘Hold those atoms together and keep those other things from falling apart.’

“It isn’t that God’s all the time having to think, ‘Keep it together, keep it together, keep it together.’ If that was the case, you’d think, ‘What if something distracted Him?!’

“Hebrews says, ‘Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.’

“That’s saying He preserves it by the word of His power. He spoke a word. Now He spoke a word and the Word of God is so powerful that when He spoke it in the past, it has effects that last forever. It’s always true in the present because He spoke it and His Word is that powerful.

“It’s His Word that keeps everything together today. And, verse 18 says He is the head of the body, the church. That’s us. ‘[18] And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.'

*****

“The ‘all things’ Paul’s talking about in this passage has a context. What’s the context? Verse 16: [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

“What things? The governmental structure that he placed in the heaven and in the earth. All of this organized structure of government that He placed in the universe, in the heavens and the earth, were created by Him and for Him. He was made the head of the body.

“Verse 20 says, [20] And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

“People use verse 20 to say that Jesus Christ through the Cross reconciled all things and that means even the devil’s going to be saved. That’s one of the verses people use for universal reconciliation to say that lost people won’t be lost forever, that eventually because of the Crosswork God’s going to reconcile all things and all things means all things. But ‘all things’ means all things in the context.

“What he’s talking about is God reconciling, not individual lost sinners to Himself, but the system of the government of the universe. Verses 21 and 22: [21] And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled
[22] In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:

“There’s your reconciliation. There’s the individual reconciliation. There’s your individual participation in this reconciliation of the structure that He created in the universe. That’s important because verse 18 says that the reason He’s ‘made the head of the body’ is so that in all those things He might have preeminence.”