God's calling when your city's in ruins

In what was a truly miraculous event, Nehemiah 6:15-16 testifies, [15] So the wall was finished in the twenty and fifth day of the month Elul, in fifty and two days.
[16] And it came to pass, that when all our enemies heard thereof, and all the heathen that were about us saw these things, they were much cast down in their own eyes: for they perceived that this work was wrought of our God.

“The wall was finished in 52 days! That's a miracle! When it says ‘all our enemies heard thereof,’ that means they were paying attention to what was going on,” explains California preacher John Verstegen.

“It might seem that what Nehemiah and his little group of people were doing was insignificant, not having any impact, but it was. And so we, too, in the dispensation of grace, when we preach Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery, there are those who want to see what we’re up to and whether we’re going to stick with it. You know, ‘Is it going to make a difference in our lives and in the lives of others?’

*****

“Nehemiah 8:1-3 says, [1] And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate; and they spake unto Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses, which the LORD had commanded to Israel.
[2] And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.
[3] And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and the women, and those that could understand; and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.

“That’s what Bible study is about. That’s what teaching the Word of God is about. So many in our day, when they’re teaching from the pulpits they’re telling stories. They’re telling fables and they’re using the Bible just to proof-text something they’re trying to convey.

“That’s not the purpose for which God wrote His Word. God wrote His Word so He could convey to humanity His eternal plan for the heavenly places and for the earth. You and I today are involved in His plans for the heavenly places.

“If we will open the Word of God and teach the Word of God--as that verse says, they read in the book of the law. By the way, that means they had it! I thought everything was in rubbish and burned? How did the Word get preserved perfectly so that they could still call it the Word of God? The doctrine of preservation, that’s how.

“By the way, when the people hear this they begin to mourn and weep and it’s really a mourning and weeping for joy. Look at verses 8-9: [8] So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.
[9] And Nehemiah, which is the Tirshatha, and Ezra the priest the scribe, and the Levites that taught the people, said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the LORD your God; mourn not, nor weep. For all the people wept, when they heard the words of the law.

“Don’t you love verse 10: [10] Then he said unto them, Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto our Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

*****

“Time and time and time again, whenever the opposition comes, what Nehemiah does is he refocuses his own thinking on the Word of God and he gets the people to refocus their thinking.

“Nehemiah understood where he was dispensationally and historically, just as the man of God today needs to understand. Nehemiah is a man who understood the condition of the nation of Israel. The city was in ruins, the people were in decline. There was much rubbish in the way and there were many adversaries.

“The man of God today needs to understand the condition of the Body of Christ. The Body of Christ many, many years ago abandoned the ministry of the Apostle Paul and it’s no wonder therefore that even since then, almost 2,000 years, the church has lived in apostasy and isn’t even aware of it! They don’t even know it!

“Before Paul died, he said in II Timothy, ‘[15] This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.

“They didn’t turn away from the Bible in general. They didn’t turn away from a belief that God created the heaven and the earth. They didn’t turn away from the belief that a man named Jesus lived, died and rose again from the dead.

“They turned away from the distinctive ministry that the Lord Jesus Christ committed to the Apostle Paul for this time in which we live. And in turning away from that message, they turned unto fables. And you know what those fables bring about? Endless questions. Much rubbish. So you can’t access the fountain!

“They don’t even believe they have a perfect Bible anymore! So the pool, the water is dirty. It’s foul, it’s poison. When you teach from the pulpits that God’s Word is not perfect, therefore you’re saying you can’t trust God’s Word. You’re saying you can’t trust God!

*****

“Nehemiah determined to let God’s purpose become his purpose and he dedicated his life to that end and so, too, the man of God today needs to understand that God’s purpose is to become his purpose and therefore to labor together with God in what God is doing.

“If we want to be a man of God today and have an impact with God, we’ve got to decide, ‘Okay, we’ll get on board with this and let this be the direction of our life.’

*****

“Paul says in I Thessalonians 2:4: [4] But as we were allowed of God to be put in trust with the gospel, even so we speak; not as pleasing men, but God, which trieth our hearts.

“Listen, when you put someone in trust of something that you believe is valuable, it’s valuable to the person who put you in trust of it. God says, ‘This gospel matters to me. I consider it valuable and I’m putting it in your trust because I want you to labor together with me.’

“When opposition came for Nehemiah, what did he do? Again and again and again and again he kept reminding himself and the people WHAT they were doing and WHY they were doing it.

“Titus 3:4-6 says, [4] But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
[5] Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
[6] Which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour;

“Look at what God says in the next two verses: [7] That being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
[8] This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

“How often do we affirm these things? God thinks we need to do it constantly.”

(another article tomorrow)

Sodomy and 'certain sons of Belial'

“In the Bible, when sodomy shows up in Israel--go back and trace it through I and II Kings and so forth--it almost always shows up in a religious context,” says Jordan. “When Israel would reject God’s Word and go into the lie program--go into Baal worship and all--that’s when sodomy would raise its head.

“In Romans 1, Paul says they don’t like to retain God in their knowledge. That’s when it shows up. That perversion, that violence, that idolatry--all of that is wrapped together in Judges 19 and that was back before there was ever a king in Israel.

"Hosea 9 says, ‘You know how bad you are? It is with you just like it was back in Judges 19.’ There’s something that happened in Judges 19 that was the WORST--it sunk lower down than ANY Gentile nation on the earth at that time. Israel had sunk morally, spiritually and culturally so low they were down LOWER than the nations God sent them in the land to destroy. 

“In a nutshell, what happened in Judges 19 is there’s a Levite and he had a concubine and, well, the two didn’t have such a great relationship. In verse 2, she went out and played the harlot and went away from him. Remind you of the whore in Hosea?

“She goes back to her daddy’s house and the Levite goes after her and starts taking her back. He comes down by Jebus (it’ll become Jerusalem after it’s taken away from the Jebusites by David) and verses 12-13 says, ‘And his master said unto him, We will not turn aside hither into the city of a stranger, that is not of the children of Israel; we will pass over to Gibeah.

[13] And he said unto his servant, Come, and let us draw near to one of these places to lodge all night, in Gibeah, or in Ramah.’

“An old man takes him into his house so he didn’t have to sleep on the street (I’m duding this up a little for you here). When he takes him into his house, and gives him hospitality, you remember what happened to Lot in Sodom when the angels came?

“It’s the same thing going to happen here. Gibeah was morally, spiritually, culturally corrupt—in fact, MORE corrupt than Sodom. So verse 22 says, ‘Now as they were making their hearts merry, behold, the men of the city, certain sons of Belial, beset the house round about, and beat at the door, and spake to the master of the house, the old man, saying, Bring forth the man that came into thine house, that we may know him.’

"If you look up the ‘sons of Belial,’ you’ll find they are certain special satanic operatives Satan placed in the land to hold the land and make Israel function in a way where they couldn’t accomplish God’s purpose.

“So these are satanic emissaries. It says ‘that we may know him.’ They’re not talking about checking his ID. This is a homosexual assault, trying to take this stranger that they hadn’t known; take him out and have their way with him. 

“The passage goes on, 23] And the man, the master of the house, went out unto them, Nay, my brethren, nay, I pray you, do not so wickedly; seeing that this man is come into mine house, do not this folly.
[24] Behold, here is my daughter a maiden, and his concubine; them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you: but unto this man do not so vile a thing.
[25] But the men would not hearken to him: so the man took his concubine, and brought her forth unto them; and they knew her, and abused her all the night until the morning: and when the day began to spring, they let her go.

“Look at the value system they got there! I mean, to save face--his honor as a hospitable dude--he’s willing to take his virgin daughter and throw her to the dogs. Take the concubine and throw her to the dogs. He’s thinking, ‘Well, at least it’s not a homosexual thing.’

“You see why he said the spirit of the men is mad and the prophet’s a fool? This is what it leads to.

“Read verse 25. Say what you want to about the guy but they didn’t have a very good relationship. She goes a-whoring on him and now he’s going to throw her out to the dogs to save his neck.

“Verse 26 says, ‘Then came the woman in the dawning of the day, and fell down at the door of the man's house where her lord was, till it was light.’

“I read that and I say, ‘I don’t know about you, but if my wife had been taken out like that I don’t think I’d have gone to bed and had a good night’s sleep. I think I would have been pacing the floor most of the night!’

“This dude just went to sleep. That was the value system! Verse 27 says, ‘And her lord rose up in the morning, and opened the doors of the house, and went out to go his way: and, behold, the woman his concubine was fallen down at the door of the house, and her hands were upon the threshold.’

“He’s leaving town! It didn’t say he went out looking for his wife! He’s figured it’s a done deal.

“The chapter ends, [28] And he said unto her, Up, and let us be going. But none answered. Then the man took her up upon an ass, and the man rose up, and gat him unto his place.
[29] And when he was come into his house, he took a knife, and laid hold on his concubine, and divided her, together with her bones, into twelve pieces, and sent her into all the coasts of Israel.
[30] And it was so, that all that saw it said, There was no such deed done nor seen from the day that the children of Israel came up out of the land of Egypt unto this day: consider of it, take advice, and speak your minds.

“Finally the guy got mad! He takes his dead wife, cuts her up into 12 pieces and sends each piece to one of the 12 tribes of Israel. Now people get mad at him for doing that, but the problem here is not what he did to her; it’s what was done to her by the people who killed her.

"That’s why he says what he says in verse 30. The thing they’re objecting to is not him cutting her up and sending her away. What he’s doing is saying to Israel, ‘LOOK what’s happening in our midst and you don’t care anything about it!’ He used a little shock treatment there to get their attention. You keep reading,  you’ll see that he does.

“The point of the story in Hosea is that the nation had gotten to that thoroughly corrupted condition where they were guilty of the same sinful abominations that Israel was back there; the same carelessness of life.

“And Hosea said, ‘What it was back there, there would have never been a day like that, that bad, but now you guys are WORSE than that and that’s why judgment’s coming!’ "

(another article tomorrow)

Endless exceeding

Job says that by God’s spirit “he hath garnished the heavens.”

Jordan explains, “When He put the stars out there, He didn’t just go, ‘Ehh, here’s a few stars.’ He literally decorated the heavens. The earth is the center and He put the stars out there in relationship to that to make it interesting and to decorate.

*****

“In the new heaven and the new earth, God takes away the curse of sin and all its debilitating effect. Think about how pock-marked the front side of the moon is. In the Flood, God brought sheets of ice out through the universe. He opened the fountains of heaven, and the water up there is the remnants of that. It was a just a hail storm of stuff.

*****

“Isaiah 9:7 it says, ‘Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end,’ Notice it’s the increase of His government. It’s not just that there’s no end to His government. That means that after the millennium, when death is done away with, the increase is always going to be there. So eventually Planet Earth is going to become saturated.

“The heavens are divided into twelve sections. The earth is divided into twelve sections. Deuteronomy 32:8 says, ‘When the most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel.’

“Things on the earth correspond to things in the heavens (Colossians 1). That’s why there are 24 elders in Revelation 24. In the heaven up there, there are universes, solar systems, whatever you want to call them, that correspond to ours.

“Revelation 22 starts, ‘And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
[2] In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, and yielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.’

*****

“In the new heaven and new earth, there’s going to be that 12-month cycle, and the way I understand that is, each month one of those 12 sections, it will be their month for the fruit and so forth.

“Each one of those months, people in that section of the earth are transported to one of these new planets. You’ll have a new Adam and Eve out there. You and I, as members of the Body of Christ, will be there to be what the Lord Jesus Christ was for Adam and Eve in the Garden.

“You understand the Lord God that walked in the cool of the day with Adam was the second person of the godhead. The difference is there will never be any sin. All that’s been settled. He’s going to create a universe populated with people who honor and glorify Him.

“Since it’s clear that ‘the increase of his government there will be no end,’ there’s going to have to be some way to extricate people off the planet. If we can send people to the moon, the Lord can get up there.

“One thing knowing all that does is it helps us understand that what we’re going to be doing out there is a whole lot more than just floating on a cloud.

*****

“It’s not true to say there’s no time in eternity. That would mean there’s no events. Time is the way you measure phenomena and the distance between events. If you don’t have time, there’s no movement. In eternity in God’s presence there is movement. So there has to be time in that sense.

“What there is is endless time in eternity. The Bible talks about world without end. Eons without end, that type of thing--ages to come.

“Here’s the part about that that thrills me: ‘That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.’ (Ephesians 2:7)

“There’s more than one age and in each age you’re going to show the exceeding riches of His grace. That means in this age, you’re going to show the riches of His grace, and in the next age, you’re going to EXCEED the demonstration from before. Every age will be more exceeding in the demonstration of His grace.

*****

“I use an illustration about Adam and Eve. Adam goes out and gets supper. He works in the Garden and comes home with a bushel of peaches and says, ‘Sugar, I think you’re going to like these. I ate one and they’re good.’ She says, ‘Man they are!’

“So the next day she takes those peaches and says, ‘You know, I bet if I sliced these up and put a little sugar on them they’d be even better.’ Adam comes home and says, ‘Man, these peaches are better than the ones yesterday!’ This is just exceeding good. So the next day, Eve bakes them and makes a peach cobbler. That’s better than the sliced peaches. It’s sort of goes like that.

“We’re going to have this endless exceeding, and what’s going to happen is ‘in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ So you’re just going to learn more about Him and appreciate Him more, value Him more, and you’re going to think it couldn’t get any better, and in the next stage, it’s going to be even better. You’re never going to stop learning more about Him."

'It's not I' closed to all but needy hearts

“When we talk about the ‘blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputeth righteousness without works,’ we’re talking about the love, the joy, the peace, the longsuffering,” says Jordan. “We’re talking about appropriating into your experience the reality of what God’s given you in your position, your identity in Christ.

“Appropriating into your experience is closed to all but the needy heart. It’s available only to those who’ll say, ‘It’s not I but Christ.’

“When those two things—a conscious awareness of faith-trust in who you are and then a realization of your absolute need in every moment for it—then you need a lifetime of spiritual growth because, friend, it takes time for the Holy Spirit to work that process into the details of your life.

“That’s why Romans 7 is in Romans 7, not Romans 2 or 5. You’ve experienced this: You’re on the mountaintop and you got the ‘Joy, Joy, Joy,’ and then a little while later, you’re down in the cloud-filled doldrums, thinking, ‘I doubt I’ll ever see the mountaintop again.’

“And when you’re in those moments of need, that’s the moment to say, ‘You know, here’s a IT'S NOT I experience! I’m down here because I’ve been trusting ME.’

“Instead of defining your situation by your problems, define them by who you are in Christ and look at the situation you’ve gotten into as an opportunity to GROW because that’s exactly what God’s grace is trying to get to.

*****

“I was at a Bible conference in Tennessee where a woman driving to the event was in a bad car wreck. She was injured quite severely and had a limb amputated and people asked, ‘Why?!’ But there was something in this lady’s inner man that gave her joy in spite of it all.

“You see, it’s ‘according to the riches of His grace.’ (Eph. 1:7) You can feel forgiven even when the circumstances don’t make out like you ought to. But you got to remember, no Believer ever fell into maturity overnight. This is a lifelong process of spiritual growth, of learning over and over, ‘It’s not I but Christ.’

“You take little baby steps at first and then you become a person who can walk. But it’s always, ‘Not I but Christ.’ It’s always seeing the riches that are mine in Him and becoming aware of my need of that. Seeing and needing brings us from a child who’s always meandering around to a responsible, specific, purposeful walk of faith. It’s called maturity; it’s called being an adult.

*****

“Colossians 2:10 says, ‘And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.’  But then look at chapter 4:12: ‘Epaphras, who is one of you, a servant of Christ, saluteth you, always labouring fervently for you in prayers, that ye may stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.’

“Wait a minute—I thought they were complete?! Why is Epaphras praying and laboring that they would BE complete?

“Paul says in Ephesians 1, ‘You’re accepted in the beloved.’ In II Corinthians 5:9, he says, ‘Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.’

“You say, ‘Wait a minute—I thought I was accepted!’ What Paul’s talking about is the difference between your standing and your state; your position in Christ and your practice in time; your identity in Him and then that identity living in your experience now.

*****

“If you’re complete in Him, there’s nothing to make you MORE complete. All you need to do is appropriate the total completeness already there and bring it into your experience and have the practical, experiential possession of what already belongs to you.

“That is to experience the joy of, ‘I am forgiven.’ Whew, that’s a wonderful thing. Let that inform your mind so that your emotions know how to relate to REALITY.

“Now, there’s two things you have to have to appropriate anything. One, you got to know about it and you can never know your identity if you don’t study the Bible rightly divided. Dispensational Bible study is the most practical thing you’ll ever have in your life because it gives you the ability to know who you really are.

“The other component is you not only have to know it, you have to be aware of your need of it. That’s because you’ll never reach out and appropriate into your experience something unless you know that you really need it. That’s what was happening to Paul in Romans 7.

“He’ll say, ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ and you say, ‘What?! How’d he get out of Romans 6 into that so fast?!’

“In Romans 7:14, Paul says, ‘For we know that the law is spiritual: but I am carnal, sold under sin.’ You lying rascal! You just told me that you’re complete in Christ, you’re dead with Him, buried with Him, raised with Him! How’d you get out of chapter 6 so fast?!

“Paul, in Romans 7, is not identifying himself as God does. He slipped back into identifying with how HE identified himself. But then he says in one little phrase in Galatians 2:20: ‘It’s not I but Christ.’

“You got to have those ‘It’s not I’ moments where you become aware of your utter bankruptcy so that the riches of Christ become THE THING that’s the need of your heart.”

Why Pharisees hated Jesus

In John 7, Jesus Christ is teaching in the temple and answers the disbelieving Pharisees by informing them, “Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am: and I am not come of myself, but he that sent me is true, whom ye know not.
[29] But I know him: for I am from him, and he hath sent me.”

“Christ is saying, ‘I used to be up there in heaven with Him and He sent me down here,’ ” explains Jordan. “When He says, ‘I know Him for I am from Him,’ that is Christ relaying His absolute certainty based on an intimacy of knowledge.

“He tells them, ‘I know the Father, and by the way, no man knoweth of the Father unless I reveal it to him.’ Christ’s saying, ‘Anybody who knows anything about the Father is indebted to me because you can never know the Father except through the Son.’

“Now, THAT’S why they hate Him and that’s why they want to kill Him! It had nothing to do with a bunch of ceremony-breaking incidents because they themselves broke the Sabbath! They didn’t care about that and they would have easily excused Christ if they had wanted to support Him.

“The reason they wanted to kill Him is because He said, ‘You can’t get to God except through ME. Your religion won’t get you anything; you got to go through ME.'

“He’s taking away all they had and replacing it with Himself. What’s He’s done is He’s gone to Jerusalem and stuck the ice pick right in their eye!

“You remember how He did that back in John 5? He healed that guy on the Sabbath knowing He was going to get a reaction from them. He was demonstrating the difference between religious and ceremonial external performance and Him—the life.

***** 

  

“In John 7:27, the Jews say, ‘Howbeit we know this man whence he is: but when Christ cometh, no man knoweth whence he is.’ There’s the spiritual ignorance they’re trying to display.

“They’re trying to say, ‘We know where Jesus came from; He was born in Bethlehem. We can go check the tax records from where Joseph was, but when the Messiah comes, nobody’s going to know where He comes from.’

“The implication there is, ‘Jesus can’t be the Messiah because we know where He came from and we’re NOT going to know where the Messiah came from.’ Now, is that right?

“They're shut down in verse 42 with, ‘Hath not the scripture said, That Christ cometh of the seed of David, and out of the town of Bethlehem, where David was?’

“They know He’s going to come from Bethlehem! When He was born, the wise men went to Jerusalem looking for Him--you know, that’s the city of the great king--but He wasn’t there. He’d already settled in Nazareth.

*****

“When Herod the king was asked where the Messiah was going to be born, he got the rabbinical scholars together and they gave a testimony to the deity of Christ without even knowing it!

“They quoted Micah 5:2, saying, ‘Look, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years ago, Micah said He’s going to be born in Bethlehem,’ yet not knowing that He’d already been born there and that they were, in fact, giving historical testimony to the validity of the prophetic statement about where He was to be born.

“I mean, here’s a bunch of rabbinical Jews giving testimony to the trustworthiness of God’s Word, and the fulfillment of it in the birth of Christ, and they don’t even know about it yet!

“The Lord’s got that sense of humor to do that kind of thing, so this is all just a bunch of hypocrisy. It’s just pride of heart. They’ve rejected Him.”

Personal info:

When my parents first came back from being missionaries we lived for a year at my grandmother’s house in Akron, Ohio. One weekend afternoon, me and my brother and sister were all playing in the basement as my dad sat in a comfy chair in the basement’s finished party room (complete with a fireplace, fully-equipped bar and piano) reading a book while the sitcom “McHale’s Navy” played in the background on a portable black-and-white TV.

Without warning, my dad got angry and started yelling for us to “Shut up!” He came after us, threatening to hit us with his belt he’d just taken off and was flapping around. All I remember was crouching down underneath a telephone table to avoid him (not having any idea where my brother and sister were). My grandmother, who was cowering in the corner of the laundry room, shouted to my mother who was somewhere upstairs, “Mary Ann, you better get down here!”

Just like that, my mom was running down the steps, yelling, “Stop it, John!” My dad, turning to aim his belt at her, responded, “Maybe you’d like some of this.” She proceeded to tear a piece of hair out from his scalp and then he scrambled up the steps, leaving the house and not returning until the end of the next day.

During the time he was gone my mom contacted a lawyer and was fully contemplating divorce (The first time she thought of divorcing him, I just recently learned, was while we stayed for a month at HCJB headquarters in Quito, Ecuador, waiting to return to the States after my dad was suddenly asked to leave our missionary compound in Shell).

In recent years, my mom has said to me regarding that Saturday afternoon in the basement, “I realized, 'I know how somebody could kill another person.' "

Love is THE answer! (Could've had a V8!)

In a visit to Barnes & Noble last week, I picked up a heavy dictionary-style book filled with hundreds of quotes and book and essay passages from British Christian writer C.S. Lewis. Here is one that, when I saw it, I remembered is printed on a card and held up by a magnet on my neighbor’s refrigerator door:

“There are three kinds of people in the world.

“The first class is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them.

“In the second class are those who acknowledge some other claim upon them—the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society—and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on. Their life is divided, like a soldier’s or a schoolboy’s life, into time ‘on parade’ and ‘off parade,’ ‘in school’ and ‘out of school.’

“But the third class is of those who can say like St Paul that for them ‘to live is Christ.’ These people have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing. The will of Christ no longer limits theirs; it is theirs. All their time, in belonging to Him, belongs also to them, for they are His.

“And because there are three classes, any merely twofold division of the world into good and bad is disastrous. It overlooks the fact that the members of the second class (to which most of us belong) are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave us enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have.

"The Christian doctrine that there is no ‘salvation’ by works done to the moral law is a fact of daily experience. Back or on we must go. But there is no going on simply by our own efforts. If the new Self, the new Will, does not come at His own good pleasure to be born in us, we cannot produce Him synthetically.

“The price of Christ is something, in a way, much easier than moral effort—it is to want Him. It is true that the wanting itself would be beyond our power but for one fact. The world is so built that, to help us desert our own satisfactions, they desert us. War and trouble and finally old age take from us one by one all those things that the natural Self hoped for at its setting out. Begging is our only wisdom, and want in the end makes it easier for us to be beggars. Even on those terms the Mercy will receive us.”

*****

A vital piece of advice from my pastor that I posted on January 23 is, “If you take Romans 12, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3, you can find in those three chapters at least one if not a half-dozen answers for every question you’re asking yourself. Every problem you face, you’ll find the beginning--if not the complete--set of instructions for you to follow.

“Those chapters will give you specific things to do and you’ll discover in them the answers for every situation. You know how I know that? For 50 years I’ve been reading those passages for that reason. I’m giving you a quick shortcut!

"I’m telling you about all this because I’ve already located these passages and found them to be a great source of instruction. You’re getting my ability to help you out a little bit.”

*****

Here is the same advice from a 2012 blog post, entitled “Being a living epistle”:

“Many years ago I discovered that when I was in need of guidance and instruction about what to do in areas of life, I could sit down and read Romans 12, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 and find specific instructions that were specific to the point and to the issue I was dealing with,” says Jordan.

“Romans 12 is always enough. I can’t think of an issue that I’ve faced in my memory that I didn’t find the clear instructions about attitudes and actions that I should take in this specific arena that I didn’t find in Romans 12.

“Romans 12 is Paul’s gathering together of the issue of, ‘Here’s the description of what the impact of God’s grace is designed to look like in the lives of Believers,’ and if you wanted to have a profile of what it is that the ministry of grace is seeking to produce in the lives of people . . . not just in doctrinal statements but what is it supposed to look like, it’s in Romans 12.

“Romans 12:12 (‘Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer’) is really, in a lot of ways, one of those encapsulized statements, right in the middle of a passage, that sort of gathers together a description of the Christian life.

“The details of your service for Christ don’t really begin until you come to Chapter 12. It’s the idea of, ‘Okay, let’s get busy being who we are in the details of life.’

“Verse 12 is in the context of how we relate to other Believers. Verse 9 says, ‘Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.’ In other words, the focus in our relationship with others is going to be on love. Let love be the real thing. Don’t ‘diss’ somebody when it comes to love. Be genuine.

*****

“I John 4 is very clear: ‘If God so loved us we ought to love one another.’ Your love for others HAS to be based upon an understanding of God’s love for you. The reason the world can never love their fellow man . . . you see the world thinks if they can get rid of the differences between people you can get rid of conflicts. Consequently, you have an egalitarian society where everything’s equal. We call it ‘multi-culturalism’ and all that kind of stuff.

“The only way you get rid of conflict is to get rid of sin. The only way you deal with the sin issue is the Cross. The world thinks the Cross is foolishness, so they reject the only answer that’s really there.

“That’s why I’ve said to you for years that you can’t abandon the world that you live in. If you want to have some impact and influence in the culture you live in, go out and preach the gospel, the truth of God’s grace, get them saved and then they’ll know and understand how to love people. Otherwise they never will.

“Abhorring evil and cleaving to that which is good is essential to love. Love doesn’t mean you just think everybody and everything’s the same. Love takes divine viewpoint and says, ‘This is good and that’s evil.’ God told Israel, ‘Woe to them that call good evil and evil good.’

“You come to verse 12 and you’ve got this dominant theme now in love just kind of echoing in your mind when you get there. That’s why it’s essential, by the way, that you go back to verse 2 and ‘be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’

“Verse 12, under that banner of love, Paul says, ‘Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer.’ So while I’m serving my brother and brethren, while I’m not being slothful in business, my attitude in it is I’m going to be rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation and I’m going to be instant in prayer.

“I’m going to be continually, constantly in prayer, all for the sake of loving others, loving our enemies as we ought. This is how Christ is designed to become visible and more real, and frankly more convincing to those who are about us. His life becomes a tangible reality.

*****

“II Corinthians talks about that living epistle. The epistle of Christ written in your heart and that life of Christ living out through you.

“You see, grace isn’t just a theology, and what he’s saying here is, ‘This is the way you think through . . . that renewed mind thinks through how to deal with the issues of life.’

“Romans 5 says, ‘And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
[4] And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
[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.’

“Our joy, hope, patience--they’re not found in freedom from trouble; they’re found in the midst of the difficulties.

“Tribulation works patience. So the tribulation has done its work. It’s taught you that there’s no other place to go but the truth of God’s Word. Patience is something that sustains you; keeps you there.

“Paul doesn’t just tolerate tribulation; he says, 'God, takes this tribulation and makes it serve you.' First, you’re rejoicing in hope. It’s important to understand what the hope is. The verse is telling you your hope is based in hope. Hope is the rock in which joy is rooted. It’s the soil out of which the rejoicing comes. The ground of our hope and the goal of our hope are all in Christ.”

As the world spirals down and drowns

“People get this idea that the Lord Jesus Christ was this meek and mild little milksop that went around the country just, ‘Oh, isn’t it wonderful, God is good, the Lord just bless all of you,’ ” says Jordan.

“He wasn’t anything like that. He was a rugged individualist, as it were. He was a man who could pick up His sandals and walk across a desert place and go and leave everyone dropped in His tracks behind Him. Physically, He was a very strong individual. But more than physical strength, because that is never the measure of manhood, He had a constitution and an inner commitment to righteousness that was absolute.

“In Matthew 23, Christ thunders and it’s a scathing denunciation of religion and to the religious system; ‘the Jews’ religion,’ as the Bible calls it. In Matthew 8 you have the same kind of exchange.

“In the Book of John there’s always this thing about continuing: ‘If you continue in my word, if you abide in my word, if my word abides in you.’ People take the Book of John and say, ‘John teaches eternal security,’ and go to verses like John 10 about Christ having given unto them eternal life. But people don’t read the whole verse. They don’t read verse 27, they just read verse 28.

“John 10:27 puts a condition on the possession of eternal life: ‘My sheep hear my voice and follow me.’ Well, then who are His sheep in John 10:27? Those who hear His voice and follow Him.

“That’s what He’s saying when He says in John 8, ‘[31] Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
[32] And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

“But look at how the Pharisees respond in the next verse: [33] They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

“I mean, you’ve got to be blind in one eye and not able to see out of the other one, with a brain about the size of a split pea, to make a statement like that. Can you tell me where the nation Israel came from? Weren’t they delivered out of bondage in Egypt into the existence of a nation at the Exodus?!

*****

“Imagine they say, ‘We’ve NEVER been in bondage’? These are politicians!

You know who ran Palestine at the time John 8 was written? The Romans. They were in Roman bondage right HERE when they’re writing! They had to go get permission from Pilate for anything they wanted to do! That’s what religion does. It’s that blinding.

“As the passage goes on, [34] Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
[35] And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.

“You notice how He didn’t argue the issue of Egypt or Rome? He argued something far more pertinent than political advantages or disadvantages--the bondage of sin and the servant abideth.

“Notice He says in verse 32, ‘Ye shall know the truth and truth shall make you free.’ Verse 36 says, [36] If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

“You see how He equates Himself with the truth? Later on He’s going to say, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life.’ In I John 2, the truth is that Jesus is the Christ. If you know that truth about who the Son is, you’re going to be free, He says. Otherwise, you’re going to be in bondage.

******

The great passage in II Peter 3 about the condition of man in the ‘last days’ says, [3] Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
[4] And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
[5] For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
[6] Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
[7] But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

“Notice there’s an 'old world' and it begins with creation and extends to the time of the Flood where it’s overflown. The water overflows it and drowns it all and then there’s a new world on the scene there. There’s a new cosmos. A new world system. George Bush would say, ‘a New World Order.’

"But it’s more than a political order; there’s a new way that the world is structured and it lasts from the Flood all the way to the Judgment at the Second Advent of Christ.

“Verse 10 says, [10] But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

“There’s going to be a future heaven and earth. There's one that starts with creation and extends to the Flood, then there’s one from the Flood to the Great White Throne Judgment, and then there’s ‘a new heaven and earth’ (Revelation 21 and 22) out beyond that.

*****

“The change from the ‘old world’ to the one that now is takes places in II Peter 2:5-6: [5] And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly;
[6] And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

“The ‘old world’ the Bible talks about was the pre-Flood world. Now that takes you back into the Book of Genesis and does some very interesting things.

"Come to chapter 11 and you have a genealogy, and if you compare the genealogy and the time period of the people’s lives in Genesis 11 with the people in Genesis 5, in Genesis 5 people lived hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Methuselah lived 969 years and his life is cut short, actually. People lived hundreds of years. They’re not having children until they’re 2-300 years old.

“When it says Noah was the 8^th person, the question is the 8^th person of what? Well, it’s not the 8^th from Adam because Enoch was the 7^th from Adam, according to the Book of Jude and Noah is a couple of generations after Enoch, but it isn’t hard to see.

"I Peter 3:20, talking about Noah again, says, [20] Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water.

“How many people got on the Ark? Noah was the eighth person. What does that tell you? Noah was the last dude to get on the Ark, folks. That’s what II Peter's talking about when it says, ‘But saved Noah the eighth person.’

“Noah is the last guy. You remember Genesis 7? Noah gets on the Ark. Who shut the door? The verse says God shut the door. There’s some great things back there. In Genesis 8:1, it says, ‘And God remembered Noah.’

“That’s a great comfort to Noah, I bet you. God shut him in. Noah’s the last one in. He got his family, the boys, their wives, his wife.

“But he’s ‘a preacher of righteousness.’ No doubt, Noah stood one more time on the deck of the porch going in and offered the invitation for others to come. Of course, nobody followed.

“Folks, I tell you the majority seldom ever follow a preacher of righteousness. If you ever feel like you’re ‘a few of many,’ well, you’re like the remnant told Jeremiah: ‘That’s who we are, the faithful few of the many who’ve gone away.’ And that’s okay.

“Noah was in the victorious minority. He’s the last guy to get on and he’s the preacher of righteousness. God extends the invitation through Noah to the very moment God shuts the door and shuts him in. Then the Flood came and destroyed the world of the ungodly.

“Now, again, the next verse in II Peter 2 says, [6] And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

“The world in Noah’s day was ungodly in a different sense than Sodom and Gomorrah was. Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19) was a hotbed of liberalism.

"A ‘sodomite’ is a word we use in our vernacular today for a homosexual. To sodomize someone is to commit a homosexual act on them. Sodom and Gomorrah were places where sin ran rampant. And sin always goes in a downward spiral to that which is against nature.

"When II Timothy 3 lists the characteristics of men when, ‘in the last days perilous times shall come,’ one them is they’ll be 'without natural affection.' "

(to be continued)

Multi-generation rottenness here to bear

“You read some of this stuff in Micah, especially in chapter 6, and my blood runs cold when I watch what goes on in the news around us today,” says Jordan. “I’m so grateful to know my citizenship is in heaven, not on Planet Earth.

“Micah 6:16 says, ‘For the statutes of Omri are kept, and all the works of the house of Ahab, and ye walk in their counsels; that I should make thee desolation and the inhabitants thereof an hissing: therefore ye shall bear the reproach of my people.’

“After he’s talked to them about the bogus currency and all the other things that are happening, it says, ‘For the statutes of Omri.’

“Notice they're walking in the statutes. When it says in Hosea that they ‘willingly walk after the commandments,’ it’s the commandments and statutes of Omri in the house of Ahab.

“Omri’s dynasty with Ahab and Jezebel made Baal worship the official religion of Israel. That nation’s in the complete and total grip of the Adversary and God destroys them. This is this multi-generational problem; it didn’t just come up in one generation.

“What’s happened now is Israel is completely taken away into that apostate system and they willingly walk in these statutes, and they willingly give their allegiance to the Baal worship system, and there’s a dynasty of it.

“It’s not one generation; it’s a long-term infection and the only answer for it is to destroy the nation; the corrupt government established by it so they could establish a new government.

*****

“Hosea 5:12 says, ‘Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.’

“God says, 'Because they’re in complete apostasy, I’m going to eat away; I’m going to destroy them.'

“A moth and rottenness. That’s stuff that corrupts you from inside. It’s not like somebody just comes along with a blowtorch and burns up your clothes. That moth is in your closet and you go to take something out of the closet and what happens? Now it’s all holes.

“When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, we read that passage in Isaiah 1 about how the whole body is sick from the top of the head down to the bottom of the feet. There’s a spiritual sickness that’s overtaken them and when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, they wept.

“Hosea 5:13-15 says, ‘When Ephraim saw his sickness, and Judah saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to king Jareb: yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.

[14] For I will be unto Ephraim as a lion, and as a young lion to the house of Judah: I, even I, will tear and go away; I will take away, and none shall rescue him.

[15] I will go and return to my place, till they acknowledge their offence, and seek my face: in their affliction they will seek me early.’

******

“Bible commentaries say that that name Jareb, if you count it out in numerics, comes out to be 666. Who would that be? The Assyrian (Isaiah 10, Micah 5) is identified as the Antichrist.

“So what does Israel do to solve their problem? They turn to Satan’s program. They turn to the wrong guy. The false messiah. ‘Yet could he not heal you, nor cure you of your wound.’

“They’re going to look to the Antichrist for help and you know what they’re going to find? There’s no help there. Verse 14 mentions the lion. When Nebuchadnezzar comes against Judah, he’s described in the Book of Jeremiah 50 as a lion. I Peter 5 describes Satan as a ‘roaring lion.’

“The lion is the Antichrist and that’s what God’s going to bring against Israel to tear them; to devour them. He says, ‘I’m going to tear and go away.’ Now, that’s the point here.

“God says in verse15, ‘I will go and return to my place till they acknowledge their offence.’ You can circle that word ‘till’ because there’s the ‘nevertheless.’ There’s the hope.

“Notice God’s going to go away and ‘return to my place.’ II Chronicles 36:23 says, ‘Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the LORD God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The LORD his God be with him, and let him go up.’

“God had said to Israel, ‘I’m going to give you a place where you can meet with me.’ That was the door of the tabernacle. Then when they built the permanent temple, it was at the temple.

“And God placed His name in Jerusalem; the place where He chose to put His dwelling. Now He says, ‘I’m going to leave and I’m going to change my place of residence from here to ‘my place,’ meaning heaven.

“He’s no longer ‘the Lord God of all the earth’; now He’s ‘the Lord God of heaven.’ The reason for that is explained in Hosea 5:14-15. He’s forsaken the earth and He’s gone on exile.

“Where was God supposed to be? Jerusalem. Where was He? He’s in heaven. He told the disciples, ‘When you pray, say, ‘Our Father which art in heaven.’ That isn’t a good thing. He was supposed to be Emmanuel—‘God with us.’

“And when He says ‘hallowed be thy name,’ Ezekiel 36 says His name was to be hallowed in the earth. That’s why it says, ‘Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’ ”

A true yokefellow home to receive Christ

Bethany, in Scripture, is a little town down in the southeast corner of the Mount of Olives, less than two miles from the city of Jerusalem. It’s a suburb of very little consequence and one nobody knows much about; its only real claim to fame is Mary, Martha and Lazarus live there.

“It’s fascinating that this is the place that Jesus goes to perform THE hallmark miracle of His ministry—the resurrection of Lazarus,” says Jordan. “No greater miracle did He do than that one and He doesn’t do it in Jerusalem.

"You remember back in chapter 7 how His brothers wanted to go to Jerusalem and show all His glory and do all this big stuff? Well, that’s where the crowd was; that’s where the fame was. You know, if you want to get a Pulitzer Prize or your name on a marquee, you go to Jerusalem.

*****

“Do you realize the Bible doesn’t mention any of the great cities of the New Testament era? There were great wonderful cities in existence at the time of Christ and the apostles but you don’t read about hardly any of them in the Bible.

“Now, you read about Ephesus and ‘great is Diana of Ephesus.’ That's the temple in Acts 19 that was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. But it’s just sort of a side note in Acts about a more important story.

“The Bible’s a strange book of history. It’s a book of history, but it focuses on the odd things. It’s not focusing on the big marquee places; it’s focusing on places like Bethany because Jesus goes there to that seemingly insignificant place to perform the hallmark miracle of His whole life.

“I think about that and that’s a tremendous example of how He glorifies Himself, not in the glory of man, but in the insignificance of man.

“He picks this little nothing of a place, as it were, as the place of the final, conclusive proof of His identity as He’s preparing to surrender Himself to death. This is a moment of great import in the life of Christ. But He doesn’t do it on the stage of human history where the cameras are rolling.

*****

“Bethany is the town of the sisters Mary and Martha. In Luke 10, you get introduced to them for the first time. This is a wonderful home. Luke 10:38-39 reads: ‘Now it came to pass, as they went, that he entered into a certain village: and a certain woman named Martha received him into her house.

[39] And she had a sister called Mary, which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard his word.'

“It’s always good to receive Christ, but when you think about it in the context of Luke 10, He’s being rejected everywhere He goes. Here’s a home that receives Him. This is a home of Believers interested in hearing what Jesus is teaching.

“Notice in John 11 how that John assumes the people he’s writing to know who Mary is. That’s the reason, by the way, that Mary is placed first in verse 11. Every other time Martha, Mary and Lazarus are all three mentioned in the Bible, Martha is mentioned first. The reason, obviously, is because people knew who Mary was. She’s the one who anointed Him and wiped His feet with her hair. 

“You can go to Mark 14 and read about it. One of the things Christ said about her was that what she did would make her famous among the Believers forever and obviously she was quite well-known.

“The passage reads: [6] And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

[7] For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

[8] She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

[9] Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

“So, this woman that does this is going to be well-known everywhere. And that’s why in John 11:2 it says this is the Mary that did that. It’s her home.

“But you notice that this account in Mark, and the parallel account in Matthew 26, her name doesn’t appear. She’s sort of like that thing in Philippians 4:3 when Paul says, ‘And I intreat thee also, true yokefellow, help those women which laboured with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellowlabourers, whose names are in the book of life.’

“He doesn’t identify who his yokefellow is. He does talk about Clement and Euodias and Syntyche but the true yokefellow, the one who was the dearest to him, he doesn’t even mention his name, obviously because everybody would know who that was.

“Matthew and Mark don’t put the name but John does. That’s sort of the way the Book of John works. It’s fascinating the little details John adds that the others leave out. For example, look at John 18:10: [10] Then Simon Peter having a sword drew it, and smote the high priest's servant, and cut off his right ear. The servant's name was Malchus.

“You can go over to Matthew 26 and Mark 14 and Luke 22 and you won’t read about the servant’s name, Malchus.

“It’s in John that you learn the women who anointed Jesus was Martha and Lazarus’ sister, Mary. The Book of John is talking about how ‘the light of the world has come,’ and little things like that kind of come out in the light of that book. It’s sort of characteristic of the way the Book of John operates.

*****

“There’s something else interesting about John 11:2. John assumed his readers already knew the accounts in Mark 14 and Matthew 26. ‘This is the woman you already knew about,’ he’s saying. If that’s true, that means Matthew and Mark, at least, were written before the Book of John, because John assumes they know all about Mary.

“Well, if the Book of John was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and Matthew and Mark are assumed to be written before John, that puts all of them much earlier than what tradition wants to put them.”

*****

Personal info: Once when I was in my mid-30s I attended a small party in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood that was held by a 77-year-old Beatnik-generation woman who had become my friend through a mutual friend, also a former Beatnik. I always remember how they laughed over the fact that my dad was, more or less, kicked out as a missionary doctor in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador for drug use. They saw this as some kind of weird badge of honor. I remember the people at the party agreeing, “I would love to meet your dad. He sounds like a real character.”

For me, the “funny” part was I had just learned this information about my dad from the year before. I spent my whole childhood on through my 20s not knowing my dad was a habitual pill-popper! From what I now know, it was my dad’s drug use, in part, that led him to become a missionary--something he paid his own way to do--in the first place. . .