Silverscreen Moses sides with Cain

Recently I popped into my VCR an old cassette tape of a Bible documentary from 1997 filmed in Israel and narrated by the late actor Charlton Heston. I already knew that Heston, as a young man, was an Air Force roommate stationed with itinerant evangelist Oscar Woodall. Woodall even acknowledged in his autobiography that he met up with Heston many years later and talked to him about gaining salvation.

So anyway, I was expecting a sincere, respectful portrayal of the Bible by Heston and what I got instead was his incessant dripping sarcasm, mockery, condescension and loathing. It was quite a display of his affinity for the Serpent, a character he relished imitating when he gave the story synopsis of Eve in the Garden of Eden.

   

Here’s the account summary Heston gave on Cain and Abel:

“Abel was a keeper of sheep but Cain was a tiller of the ground. In time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground in offering unto the Lord, while Abel brought the choicest of his flock. So the Lord had respect unto Abel and his offering, but unto Cain and his offering, He had NO respect. ... the story of Cain and Abel begins with a lamb sacrificed to God and ends with the first murder, which is also the first fratacide. I’m puzzled that God accepts Abel’s lamb but rejects Cain’s grain. Some scholars point out that the original Israelites were a shepherd people who disdained their Cainite neighbors, not only because they were farmers but because they lived in towns, grew grain and grapes and worshipped pagan gods.”

Of course, anybody who knows the doctrine related to Cain being cursed by God knows he deliberately disobeyed God’s instructions to the brothers as to what to bring as the sacrificial offering.

“The problem Cain ran into was he didn’t bring the right thing,” explains Jordan. “He thought, ‘I’m gonna go and offer something to the Lord; I’m gonna make it the best it could ever be!’ And he worked and toiled and he made it the best HE could make it so that he could PROVE to God just how worthy he was to be the 'promised seed.' "

*****

Genesis 4 informs that “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
[2] And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
[3] And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.”

Jordan explains, “Eve was trusting God’s promise, looking for the promised seed, so she names the boy Cain. The name Cain means ‘to possess; to acquire.’ He was the one she believed they were going to get it all back through, i.e., the fallen creation that resulted from eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

“Then she bears his brother Abel. Abel means vanity. He was just an add-on. He was useless, futile; he’s not going to do anything to ease their burden. All their hope was in Cain. And they signify that by the name.

“It says in verse 2 that ‘Abel was a keeper of sheep.’ In the Bible, keepers of sheep are sort of not very important. You remember David was a keeper of sheep? Samuel comes to pick one of Jesse’s boys to be king. None of them qualify, so he says, ‘You got anybody else?’ and they say, ‘Well, yeah, we got the kid out keeping the sheep. Somebody’ll have to send for him; it’ll take two to three days to find him because he’s out there by himself.’

“Cain was a tiller of the ground. You know what Adam did with Cain? It was, ‘Here’s my boy!’ He brought him into the family business: Adam & Son. He taught him what he knew about keeping the Garden. That’s what God gave Adam to do. Adam and Eve’s hope was in Cain: ‘Gonna be the Promised Seed!’

“When it says, ‘And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit,’ notice that time passes. They had some understanding. God’s word was accessible to them. Mom and Dad talked to them. Cain knew God had created all things. Adam had actually seen God create things on the sixth day.

*****

“The family knew God had a plan and a purpose for man in the earth. They knew about the serpent; they knew he was an enemy. They knew he was a liar and they were supposed to stay away from him. They knew about sin and punishment; why they weren’t in the Garden any longer. They knew about God’s mercy and grace.

“They knew about that first sacrifice. I’m really struck by the fact Cain brought the fruit of the ground, because you got to understand Cain—he’s the first Pharisee (Abel was the first prophet). Cain is Mr. Religious.

“Cain longed for the day when God would say, ‘You’re the seed!’ He had that desire, that motivation, that fervor of religion to be the one who’s praised by God and magnified before all of his family as the ‘Chosen One.’ The problem was his confidence was in what HE could do.

“Jesus said that’s where the Pharisees come from. Paul said that’s where he was. This was supposed to be Cain’s day and it didn’t work out. Cain’s best turned into rage and anger and blood lust for murder. It didn’t turn into good things. It didn’t bring peace and joy and happiness. It brought destruction to his brother and to all that followed him.

*****

“You go down through the rest of this chapter and you’ll see ‘the way of Cain.’ He develops a whole culture of people who follow him, and that generation that begins to follow him when Jesus comes along . . .

“Jesus looks at the Pharisees and He says, ‘You are of your father the devil, the lust of your fathers you will do!’ Cain bought into Satan’s lie and all the Pharisees in the ages . . . Paul says, ‘That’s where I was! I was over there trusting my works, my efforts, what I was going to accomplish, and I figured out it's all just dung. Everything I do is just filthy rags.’

“You can translate that ‘dung-covered rags’ if you want to. You see, what’s going on in Philippians 3 is something that’s been going on all through the ages. There are just two choices and the question God asked Cain about ‘Why?’ is the question we have to answer today.

“Genesis 4 says, ‘And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
[7] If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.”

“God was giving Cain a hope even then; Cain wasn’t a helpless victim who was run by sin. He had the opportunity to make some choices; he could have believed God’s Word and God’s Word would have liberated him.

“Cain’s desire, though, was to usurp God’s authority and trust his own resources. Abel, on the other hand, had no confidence in his own ability and he just believed God and trusted God’s Word and did what it said. That’s life.”

Key is in getting off the fence

“Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it,” advises Jo Petty in her 1951 book, Apples of Gold. “To go without some of the things we want is indispensable to happiness.

“Love is the passionate and abiding desire on the part of two or more people to produce together conditions under which each can be, and spontaneously express, his real self; to produce together an intellectual soil and an emotional climate in which each can flourish, far superior to what either could achieve alone.”

*****

I always remember an interview Oprah once had with a woman who was held hostage in Columbia for six-plus years. The lasting message the woman said she took away from her horrific ordeal was, “Whoever the person you ultimately want to be, that one you always dream about one day becoming, just be that person right now. You don’t have to wait.”

*****

“One of the hard things to do when you teach people is to help folks move out of sentimental-based thinking into the good, hard doctrinal reality that gives substance to their hope," relays Preacher Richard Jordan. "Their hope will then give the sentimental attachment."

“People say, ‘Well, why don’t I just start with the sentimental attachment and forget how I got there?’

"Because, as soon as the wind blows, you get off that sentimental attachment. If it’s all based in your sentiment, when the wind blows the other way, your sentiment turns around and you’re mad sentimentally in your emotions. You know that.

“Your emotions can change like that. You need your hope built on something that doesn’t change. You see, if you’ve got the facts and you place your faith in the facts, that faith in the facts of God’s Word will bear fruit and the fruit will produce some feeling.

“The feelings are like the tip end of the tail on the dog--they come last. My daddy used to say that he liked everything on the pig, including the part that jumps over the fence last. That’s where feelings are! Get the whole pig over the fence and the feelings will get there. And if they don’t, you know what? You’re not going to worry about it because the pig’s over the fence.”

(new article tomorrow)

As the hurricane approaches . . .

Lately, when I've felt lonely or homesick, craving companionship, I've been finding solace in a book from 1916 called, “Christ and his Bride: An Exposition of the Song of Solomon.” I feel a real kinship with the writer, Cora MacIlravy, who displays a thoroughly endearing inner fortitude with her intimately poetic observations and extrapolations.

Just today, I read her interpretation of Song of Solomon 6:3: [3] I am my beloved's, and my beloved is mine: he feedeth among the lilies.

MacIlravy writes, “As the bride describes the beauties of the Bridegroom, and as she remembers that He has gone to His garden, a stronger encouragement arises in her heart. She recalls the precious experiences that she has had with Him, how she has walked and talked with Him by the way. There is a new assurance that springs up in her heart, and she declares with joy and holy exultation: ‘I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine; He feedeth His flock among the lilies,’ or literally: ‘I am for my Beloved and He is for me.’

“No matter how the storms blow our little barks about; no matter how the hurricanes carry us down into the deep valleys between the mountain waves; through the darkness of testing, there is a rock of defense and comfort to the soul that can say: ‘I am for my Beloved and He is for me.’

"Though it seems that the winds will never cease, and the waves be still, and the storm abate; if we can say: ‘I am for my Beloved and He is for me,’ we can breast the worst storm, we can ride the highest billows, we can be undismayed in the midst of the shipwreck, knowing that the Lord will not let us be put to shame. God will always provide at least ‘a plank’ or some ‘other things’ to bring the trusting soul to shore; and it takes more faith to reach shore on a plank, than it does to sail in on a water-tight vessel. In this way does God increase and perfect our faith.

“Only comparatively few of God’s children can say from the heart, that they are for their Beloved. It does not mean being for Him in some things and for ourselves in other things, but being for Him in everything and in all we do and say; letting this relation have the preeminence in our hearts and lives.

"If we apprehended this, and it were as true in our lives as God would have it, how changed many things would be; how many words and acts would be cut off. How many times the hand of our Beloved would turn us aside, when we would decide for ourselves and choose that which was unworthy of Him who died for us. And as our fleshly energy was subdued, we would leave our plans and desires undone while we walked with Him and did the will of God.”

*****

Here’s an old blog entry from January of 2014:

In my copy of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible,” the chapter on the Song of Solomon has the headline parenthesis (Parental Warning: Explicit Lyrics). Imagine the Bible being censored by today’s standard of what’s “too sexual”!

The authors, supposed experts in the Bible with all kinds of accolades to their credit, have no real idea what the book means. They even admit as much, writing, “And what is the song about? Love, obviously—but is it about ordinary romantic love, or is it an allegory? Some say the song is about the relationship of love between God and the nation of Israel, or Christ and the Church his bride, or Christ and the individual.”

The passage goes on, “These days a woman might not be as happy to hear that her hair is like a flock of goats, her teeth are like a flock of sheep, her temples are like the halves of a pomegranate, her neck is like a tower, or her breasts are like two fawns. (Song of Songs 4:1-7).  The description sounds like Picasso’s kind of woman. Really, the Lover (the man) is praising the Beloved’s flowing black hair, lovely white teeth, rosy face, majestic bearing, and soft, enticing body.”

*****

Of course, the writers don’t even touch on any prophetic value of the book, which happens to serve as one of God’s many biblical “dress rehearsals” for the last days and the Second Coming.

As Jordan explained in last week’s study in Hosea, “The Song of Solomon is one of the songs of Israel and it’s a prophetic song about the last days of Israel. It’s about the ‘little flock’ or the ‘believing remnant’ in Israel resisting being seduced away by the Antichrist and how the Lord Jesus Christ, the real bridegroom, keeps their heart fixed on Him. It describes how they face the seduction attempts and how the Lord Jesus Christ, the real Christ, will protect them from it.

“When you study a book like Song of Solomon, it’s not just a love story to tell a man how to love his wife or a wife how to love her husband. Now, you can do that stuff, I’m not recommending against it, I’m just saying that’s not what it’s for in the Bible.

“So when you find a passage like Hosea and he says, ‘Come, and let us return unto the LORD: for he hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will bind us up.’ The issue here is, ‘Come back, Lord, come back, and save us and deliver us and revive us up.’

“Song of Solomon 6:13 says, ‘Return, return, O Shulamite; return, return, that we may look upon thee. What will ye see in the Shulamite? As it were the company of two armies.’

*****

“I don’t think I understand it all perfectly; in fact, I don’t think I understand it through a glass darkly. It’s there; I understand a little of it. I’m not trying to be the one who knows everything; I don’t know nearly enough about it to say that. But it’s just fascinating things to study.

“Now, having said all that, the reason I study these things is because it’s in the Word of God and I study the Word of God. And I’m fascinated by some of these things. They are interesting, and when you get fascinated about these kinds of things, and you get involved in them and you begin to see how the Lord thinks about these things, that does motivate you to do the weightier matters of your Christian life.

“That’s how grace motivates you, with that internal compulsion of appreciation in valuing and esteeming and setting your affections on the things of your Savior.

“They’re talking about Him coming back. When they see Him coming, what are they going to see? There’s a whole bunch of things involved in what that two-army thing is, but I read that verse just so you can understand last time when I talked to you about the Lord coming. I just refer to it as flight path down the Mediterranean Sea and the reason I did that is you have to understand there are two issues in His coming as far as the methodology.

“One, He’s going to be flying. Isaiah 28 has three different kind of vehicles He’s going to be associated with in the aerial attack. Then He’s going to have a ground attack where He’s on the ground. 

“When they see Him coming, they’re going to see two armies. From the perspective of that, the ‘believing remnant,’ when they’re watching the Lord’s coming, it’s going to be, you know, the allies of World War II had General Patton and his army, then they had Montgomery and his army. They’re one bunch of allies but they had different theaters of operation. There’s going to be a theater of operation that comes down the Mediterranean coast. Amos 1 starts it up in Damascus up in the north. He Comes down the Mediterranean coast and goes all the way down to Sinai. He comes to defend and deliver Israel.

*****

“When you study the prophetic scripture, you can understand that all scripture has a historical context in which it’s written. It means something historically but it also means something in connection with every other thing in the Bible.

“That’s why when you study some of these passages that most people back here look at historically or devotionally, if you study them doctrinally or dispensationally, you’ll see that they’re not just little ditties to help you get through the day without being depressed and down in the dumps.

“They’re not just little principles for you to guide your life by. The issue isn’t you guiding your life anyway. The issue’s God’s Word guiding your life and it’s not you finding a bunch of principles in God’s Word that are going to tell you how to have a successful, wonderful, sweet, kind of life that never has a problem. It’s finding what God’s doing and getting in line with it.

“When you’re studying the prophetic program, you’re studying Israel’s history; it’s a rehearsal of something God’s going to do in the future. We looked at those passages back in Judges where He talks about, ‘I’m going to rehearse for you,’ and He talks to them about the battle and it’s like a dress rehearsal of the things that are going to come in the future.

“That’s why you find numerous psalms—Psalm 105, 106, 78 and so forth—that are just whole big psalms about the history of Israel. They knew their history. The reason those psalms are there are because the events in history, and the things those psalms say about them, are designed to help--especially for that remnant in the last day to understand what’s going on and how to respond to it.

*****

The Book of Proverbs is called a book of prophecy. I’ve heard people teach proverbs all my life. They talk about reading one chapter a day and that kind of thing. You know, 31 days. I think if you want to be instructed in wisdom in the law program and Israel’s prophecy program, you want to find out how Israel’s educated to manipulate and matriculate through the last days.

“There’s a whole bunch of stuff in Proverbs that have nothing to do with you and me and will absolutely confuse you if you try to apply them in the dispensation of grace!

“The whole pattern in Proverbs is not consistent with what Paul is preaching to us, as far as its appropriateness for us today, but it’s great to know about; it’s great to learn. I’m nosy like anybody else; I like to read someone else’s mail.”

God shuts Ark door on 6-plus billion

“Before the Flood there was a population explosion because men and women were living to be almost a thousand years old,” explains Noah W. Hutchings in his 1998 classic God Divided the Nations. “There would have been a minimum of six billion souls on Earth.”

Referring to God, II Peter 2:5 says, [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.

“When Peter says Noah was the eighth person, he’s not saying the eighth from Adam because Enoch was the seventh from Adam, according to the Book of Jude, and Noah is a couple of generations after Enoch," explains Jordan.

“It isn’t hard to figure out. I Peter 3:20 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? Eight. Noah was the last guy to get inside, folks. You remember Genesis 7 when Noah finally gets on? Who shut the door? The verse says God shut the door!

“Genesis 8:1 says, ‘And God remembered Noah.’ That was a great comfort to know, I bet. Noah’s already got his wife and family--the boys and their wives—onboard. He’s a preacher of righteousness so Noah no doubt 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, the majority seldom ever follows a preacher of righteousness. If you ever feel like you’re a few of many, well you’re like the one who told Jeremiah, ‘That’s who we are; the faithful few of the many who’ve gone away.’

“God extends the invitation of salvation ’til the very moment He personally shuts the door and shuts Noah in and then the Flood comes and destroys the world of the ungodly.

*****

"II Peter 2:6 says, [6] And turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes condemned them with an overthrow, making them an ensample unto those that after should live ungodly;

“Now, the world in Noah’s day was ungodly in a different sense than Sodom & Gomorrah was. Sodom & Gomorrah, found in Genesis 19, was a hotbed of liberalism. They were in a place where sin ran rampant and, as you know, sin always goes in a downward spiral to 'that which is against nature.'

“II Timothy 3 says that in the ‘last days’ perilous times shall come and that one of the characteristics is people will be ‘without natural affection.’ Something so twisted and perverted, the thinking process, with such selfishness, to satisfy their own economic, social and personal whims. The consequences of sin is to be self-oriented in a self-fixated life all about me, my problems, my abilities, my lack of abilities, etc.

*****

In Luke 17, Jesus Christ details for the Pharisees the days of Noah and the Flood and of Lot and Sodom & Gomorrah. The chapter’s end reads, [33] Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it.
[34] I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
[35] Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
[36] Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
[37] And they answered and said unto him, Where, Lord? And he said unto them, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together.

Jordan explains, “I had a guy use verse 34 on me once to try to prove to me that homosexuality was going to be practiced among the saints. I looked at him and said, ‘Say what?’ and he said, ‘It says there’s going to be ‘two men in one bed.’ What’s the answer?’ I said, ‘What you need to do is quit acting like a yo-yo, that’s what the answer is.’ I mean, how do you answer something that’s that stupid? But anyway, people are nuts.

“You know what the answer to that is? ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners.’ You’re mind’s been in the gutter so long you can’t even read something without imputing evil to it.

*****

“People say that passage is about the Rapture, but that’s the Second Coming of Christ. That’s not the Rapture when the Body of Christ is called out and we meet ‘here, there or in the air.’ That’s Christ coming back to the earth to establish His kingdom and the one who’s taken here is not taken to ‘meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord.’ The one taken here is in verse 37.

“You write down by that verse Revelation 19:11-21 and go home and study that and you’ll see John says, [11] And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war.

“You see Him on the white horse coming back at the Second Advent and He’s got the sword and rides the horse and comes to tread the winepress of the fierceness of wrath of Almighty God.

“At the very end of that coming, at the end of that battle associated with Christ’s return, there’s a great supper and He invites all the fowls of heaven, the birds, to come to that great feast.

"All the people who want to talk about the ‘marriage of the Lamb,’ and you being ‘the bride of Christ’ and going to down to the marriage supper, you know what that supper’s made of? The dead bodies of people He’s destroyed when He ‘reserved the wicked to the day of judgment.’ That’s where this guy who’s taken is taken! He’s taken in the judgment.

“You know, Jesus says back in verse 27: ‘They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.’

“You look at the comparative passage in Matthew about that and it says the Flood came and took them all out of the way; took them in judgment. The one in the field is taken in judgment and one is gathered into the kingdom. As John the Baptist said, ‘Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.’ “

'For time won't matter anymore . . .'

Noah lived 350 years after the Flood and died at 950, only 50 years before Abraham’s birth. “It is entirely possible that Abraham saw one or more of Noah’s three sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth,” writes Noah W. Hutchings in his 1998 classic God Divided the Nations. “Ham had 30 sons, Japheth had 14 sons and Shem had 26 sons. We are not told how many daughters they had.

“It certainly would be improbable for a woman to have this many children in a normal life span today. Peleg, who lived at the time of the Tower of Babel, lived to be 239 years of age, and Eber, a grandson of Noah, lived to 464 years of age. So even after the Flood, for about 400 years, men lived to be 700 years old, and had large families. This was for the purpose of the rapid replenishing of the earth with people, since God desired that all the earth be reinhabited again.”

*****

“The ‘old world,’ which was the pre-Flood world, offers some very interesting things to examine when you study Genesis 1-10 and then come to Genesis 11,” says Jordan. “In Genesis 11 is a genealogy you can compare to the time period of the peoples’ lives in Genesis 5.

“In Genesis 5, people lived hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. Methuselah lives 969 years and his life is cut short actually. People aren’t even having children until they’re 200-300 years old.

“Immediately after the Flood the longevity span begins to drop to less than 100 years. It quickly tapers down. The question asked is, ‘Why is that?’ One of the obvious reasons is there was a tremendous difference in the way the world was structured prior to the Flood and after the Flood.

“Before the Flood, the earth was not tilted on the 23.5 degree axis that it is now. That’s what makes us have seasons. Seasons are introduced in the Bible in Genesis 8:22, after the Flood. Prior to the Flood, the earth would have been a tropics kind of environment all around. That’s why in the archaeological evidence you find all kinds of indications of that in strange places.

*****

“Another thing is the Garden of Eden was on earth. In Genesis 4, Cain and Abel go to the door of the Garden and the cherubim are there providing the way that man can bring a sacrifice and offer it before God. There was place to go in the earth for those sacrifices.

“After the Flood, that place is gone; it’s been removed from the earth. When Noah gets off the Ark, he offers for the first time a burnt offering. The offering had to ascend UP into God’s presence. Noah is a second Adam. We’re all the sons of Adam here tonight but were also all the sons of Noah.”

Hutchings writes, "The Garden of Eden must have been an immense jungle of vegetation and animal life. The general area, as evidenced by the junction of the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers, was somewhere in the Persian Gulf near Kuwait. Oil is the residue of the decomposition of animal and vegetable matter, and there is more oil under the ground in that area than in any other place in the world . . . 

"Before the Flood it was unnecessary for men to eat meat, because the nuts and herbs were delicious and nutritious. Adam was told in Genesis 1:29 that the herbs, the seeds and the fruit of the trees 'shall be for meat' . . . If the world was restored to its Edenic condition, many of the reasons nations go to war against each other would be resolved. There would be food, shelter and clothing for everyone."

Historian Josephus actually says the "Garden was watered by one river, which ran round about the whole earth, and was parted into four parts."

*****

“ ‘The Garden,’ which always has the significance of the Kingdom of God, has been set up on earth by the work of Jesus Christ on the Cross of Calvary,” writes Bible expositor Cora MacIlravy, circa 1916. “In this Garden, God has planted precious plants, costly spices and aromatic herbs. He has planted lilies, which are white and pure, humble and fragrant; and among these lilies is found the One who is the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the Valleys . . . Not only does the bride feed and work in this Garden, but she is a part of it. Her life is a little vineyard which is a part of God’s great Vineyard, a little garden which is a part of God’s great Garden . . .

“Dear reader, are we crying from the depths of our hearts, ‘Awake, O North wind’? Are our hearts longing for Him to blow upon our vineyards in conviction and dealing and testing, however hard it may be on the flesh? Can we pray most fervently that God will send His Spirit, as the north wind, to search out the pride; and that He will blow upon it until it is blasted and drops off, and we are clothed in humility? . . .

“How many times we thought we had entered into possession of those things that God had showed us and called us to begin to possess? How many times God has let us see the blessedness of the path in which we walk alone with Him, and we thought we were walking in it. But when He sent the Spirit to blow upon our lives, we found that He was not our all and all; that we were depending upon someone else or upon our feelings, rather than upon the Lord.

“How little we recognize our own plans and desires, which are as suckers in our spiritual lives. How little we apprehend the place we give the flesh and our own interests, our likes and dislikes, our experiences and self-absorption, which eat the strength and life out of our relation and attitude toward God. When God sends the Holy Spirit as the north wind, He comes and uncovers our nakedness, exposing the selfishness of our thoughts, and our false position. With a blast of conviction, He blows upon those suckers, and like a mighty wind He sweeps down upon them to try them. As they fall off, we are left apparently stripped and bare; but, in reality, we are in a better condition to bring forth blossoms and fruit to His glory than we have ever been before.

“Can we look into His face with confidence and say: ‘Awake, O North wind and blow upon my garden'? Lord, send the testings down, and the trials you see I need; send the hard things that are needed to try every blossom. Blow upon the blossoms in my life that are so beautiful and look as though they would bear luscious fruit for Thy glory. Blow upon them and prove whether they will abide, or whether they have no beginning of fruit in them. Let the wind of Thy dealings prove whether they will fall off because they are all show and cannot stand the test.

“How many of God’s dealings and revelations, how many of His calls to higher ground, have been rejoiced in and have made much show before our own eyes and in the eyes of others. But we did not yield that God might make them fruitful, and they remained only dealings and revelations, and never became possessions . . .

“He separates us from every one and everything that is harming our vineyards; He blows upon the human affections, both in us and in those who have a place in our lives; and before His north wind, human love withers up . . .

“In spiritual things, as in the natural, the blossom is not the fruit. How many times we see a vineyard or fruit tree beautiful with fragrant blossoms, and we begin to look forward to an abundant harvest of fruit. But when the blossoms fall off, and it is time for the fruit to appear, there are only a few small, weakly apples, pears, or grapes, whatever the fruit may be; and all the beautiful blossoms lie decaying and unsightly upon the ground beneath the tree.”  

A drink from some cool spring

"The high mountains of Lebanon rise in a series of steps, with sharp edges facing generally south or south-east," explains an encyclopedia of the Bible. "The lower steps in the 'staircase' were and are fertile basin lands, separated from each other by the barren limestone edges. In the time of Jesus, these basins were known for their grain, fruit and olives. They formed a prosperous, well-populated area. But the higher steps rise to a bleak and windswept upland. This is isolated and infertile, and lacks the forests of the higher mountain slopes further north."

*****

“The mountain of Lebanon derived its name from the white crown of snow, which it wore all the time," writes Bible commentary author Cora MacIlravy, circa 1916. "Streams of pure, cold water flowed down its sides or found their way through underground channels to the thirsty valleys below. These mountain streams never failed, never became stale and tasteless, warm and unrefreshing. From a higher source than any earthly mountain, comes the living water with which we are refreshed; though the Channel through which it flowed, appeared so lowly when upon earth.

“This Fountain of gardens was so uncomely in His human body, this Well of living water was so weak and despised as He hung and died on the Cross, that He appeared no greater than any other man as they laid His lifeless body away in the tomb. But this Fountain had its source in the Holy Mountain of God, it issued from the throne of God. It came from the everlasting hills in Heaven and flowed down to earth, bringing life wherever it flowed, watering the wilderness and making the desert to blossom as a rose.

“He is the Fountain of gardens; every garden and every part of God’s great Vineyard must receive all its refreshment from Him and Him alone. All our fountains are in Him, He waters the vineyard of your life and mine. It matters not how fierce the wind may blow, nor how hot the valley is through which we are passing, if we keep the connection opened between our souls and the great Fountain of life, the Well of living streams will ever flow from the throne of God. Sometimes they are like rivers, sometimes like hidden underground springs, but they never run dry.”

When the Bible gives the picture of "rivers of living water flowing" out of the Believer, it’s really talking about God the Holy Spirit. Living water and rivers are two 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 water’? 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,’ 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)

Lot's more than wife missing her china

Most commentaries on the story of Lot and his wife, who looked back and turned to a pillar of salt, would have us believe God is simply teaching morality lessons, ignoring the account's tremendous prophecy.

“As much as we long to move forward in grace, we find our past still pulls at us,” writes “Christian living” author Jen Wilkin, who actually admits in her internet article, “I am Lot’s wife.”

“But it’s not enough to recognize and regret our sin,” she continues. “To leave it behind, we must learn to hate it. And this is where I begin to think about Lot’s wife. You remember her—raised a family in a city known for its sexual depravity, had to be physically dragged out of her hometown to avoid its imminent destruction, checked her rearview mirror, and, presto-change-o, turned into your favorite popcorn flavoring. Pretty high up there on the ‘Weird Stories of the Bible’ list.”

*****

II Peter 2:9 says, [9] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

Jordan explains, “The three illustrations given in the chapter of those God has reserved to judgment are the angels (verse 4), the old world (verse 5) and Sodom & Gomorrah (verse 6). As Peter says in verse 3 about the false prophets and teachers, their damnation is sure and it’s not going to slumber; it’s not going to linger forever and God will pour out His judgment on them.

“II Peter also uses illustrations with Noah and Lot about God delivering the godly from/out of the trouble. It’s interesting that he uses these two men. Noah and Lot are the real ‘latter-day saints,’ not the Mormons. They are illustrations, types and pictures of two classes of people who are going to need to be delivered out of the time of Jacob’s trouble.

“Of course, before God poured judgment out on the world with the Flood, He had Noah, the preacher of righteousness, go and build the Ark. Genesis 7 says Noah and his family were righteous before the Lord and perfect in their generations. That is, they had not had their line contaminated by ‘the sons of god.’ They hadn’t entered into that angelic intermingling, but were people who walked before the Lord by faith in the things of God.

“Now, Lot, on the other hand, was a different kind of a Believer. You notice in II Peter 2:7, it says, [7] And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked:

“That word ‘just’ there doesn’t mean ONLY Lot; it means ‘justified’ Lot. You know that in verse 8: [8] (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)

“Lot chose to live in Sodom. He could have avoided the influence of Sodom, but he pitched his tents toward Sodom. Lot is the picture of a compromiser. Lot is a picture of a man with no separation in his life and testimony.

“When Lot was delivered out of Sodom, he convinced his two unmarried daughters to go with him, but with his other daughters and their husbands, they wouldn’t go. Lot had no testimony of any value to anybody.

“When Lot tried to share God’s Word with them and tell them about the coming judgment, they laughed up their sleeve at him. He had all kind of influence in the social, economic, cultural and political societies of Sodom, but Lot had no spiritual influence because of him being a compromiser.

*****

“Lot was the opposite of Daniel. When the king’s meat was set before Daniel, Daniel reasoned, ‘I think I’ll have what God would have for me and not what the king has.’ Lot was a guy who had absolutely no interest in doing anything but pleasing himself, and so he leaves town without a testimony, dragging his wife and two girls with him.

“Of course, he lost his wife when she turned around to look back and was turned to a pillar of salt. But even after that, Lot wound up living in a cave with his two daughters, and if you know the sad end of that story in Genesis 19, his daughters got him drunk and committed incest with him in order to have children.

“The two kids born of those girls by their daddy in that incestuous relationship . . . wonder where they learned to live in incest with their daddy? They didn’t learn that sitting at the feet of Abraham. They learned that in Sodom.

“They learned that because of the influence of the compromises of their dad, resulting in a pitiful flop of a life, and those two kids who were born of them--go back and check Genesis 19-- plagued God’s people all through the Old Testament. The works of the flesh always do that.

“Lot was vexed, troubled, haunted by the lifestyle that was in Sodom and Gomorrah, but he was a righteous man and because of that God delivered him and he’s a picture of people. God cries out to His people in Revelation 18, he cries to Babylon, ‘Come out of her! Come out,’ and God is doing that with Israel. He’s gathering His ‘believing remnant’ out in the Tribulation even in their failure.

*****

“Luke 17 will show you why Peter would have picked up on these two men, Noah and Lot. Verses 26-32 report, [26] And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
[27] They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
[28] Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
[29] But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
[30] Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
[31] In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
[32] Remember Lot's wife.

“Lot’s wife is an example of somebody who’s going out but does what? Turns back. Do you remember Hebrews 6 and it says, ‘Here you are, you’ve tasted of the good Word of God and the powers of the world to come, and you’ve been enlightened and so forth. It’s impossible to renew someone in that condition again to repentance if they go back.’

“That’s a verse they use to make you think you might lose your salvation. Hebrews 10:26-27 is another one:  [26] For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
[27] But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.

“These verses in Hebrews match what’s going on in Luke 17. They are ‘Tribulation truth.’ I’m tempted to believe that in the Tribulation period somebody’s going to be going around preaching the eternal security passages in Paul’s epistles--such as Romans 5, 8 and Ephesians 1--making it truth for them. That would be sort of the way things would work, you know.

“Most heresy in the church the Body of Christ today that is Bible heresy, it’s scriptural but not dispensational. Most of it is Tribulation truth. It’s scriptural and will be right and true in the Tribulation, it just isn’t true today. It isn’t what God’s doing today. People who quote these verses take them out of where they fit.

“Well, this passage here is talking about some people who get out and stay out and go, but then there’s some people who turn back and they are those Hebrews 10 talks about. They’re the ones that I John 2 talks about and the ones we’re going to read about later on in II Peter 2.

“These are people who have escaped the corruptions of the world and yet have gone back into it. I John says, [19] They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us.

“If God’s going to take a literal, physical, visible, earthly nation into a kingdom, He’s not going to take a mixed multitude into that kingdom. And the purpose of the Tribulation period is for the nation Israel—Isaiah 10 says He’s going to take His rod and make them pass under it and it’s only the Believers . . .

“There’s a lot of professers and would-bes that come in, but it’s only the Believer who’s going to get on to the other end, because they that endure to the end shall be saved. The ones who turn back are the ones who don’t ever get the salvation, because you don’t get it until you get into the kingdom. It’s only the ones who are in the kingdom that gain this salvation program, so he says, ‘Don’t be like Lot’s wife.’

*****

“The temptation for these people is going to be to turn back. They’re going to have Judaism restored. They’re going to have the Old Testament sacrificial system, the law and the prophets—they’re going to have it ALL restored for them back in Jerusalem.

“Two hundred and twenty days after the Antichrist signs a covenant with the nation Israel and rescues them from utter destruction, he comes in as their Messiah and their Redeemer. Two hundred and twenty days after they make that peace covenant with him--planet wide on CNN on FOX--they’re going to inaugurate again the daily sacrifices right there in Jerusalem, in their own temple. The temple will be rebuilt and they’ll be back at it. And then there will be a call that goes out and across the world for the Jews to come back.

“You see the movie Schindler’s List and it says there were less than 2,000 Jews left in Poland at the end of WWII. That’s sort of weeding them down to pretty near nothing. If there’s only 2,000 animals left of a certain species, you call that an endangered species and you’ve got the whole planet going out and trying to save it.

“Well, all those people are going to go back in droves and be set-up back over there, and then there will be some little street preacher who stands out on the corner and says, ‘No, no, no, no, no, this is not the real nation! The real Messiah has already come 2,000 years ago. This one who just delivered you, who’s bringing us economic prosperity and peace and giving us our religion and our identity and our homeland back, he’s a phony!’

“Now, what kind of reception do you think that preacher’s going to get?! These people are going to be tempted, pressed, troubled into turning back and the whole issue in the Hebrews epistle is to motivate them not to turn back.

"The message is, ‘Remember the provision God has made for you in the propitiatory sacrifice of Christ and see the finished work and see what God has done where you don’t need Judaism anymore. You don’t need the Mosaic Law; He’s put away the old covenant and given you the new covenant.’

“Hebrews never says, ‘Here, look, we’re the members of the Body of Christ.’ It says, ‘Here, Israel, look what God’s done for you in YOUR program through the Cross.’ The Book of James challenges them about the issue of their justification, meaning they needed to go and hold out and do the works that were ‘meet for repentance.’

“I Peter talks to them about that ‘lively hope’ they have. II Peter talks to them about the challenges they’ll have in suffering through these things. I, II and III John talk about the test they’ll use to identify the true believer from the false believer in those days.

“You better not take all those tests for yourself today; they won’t work! That’s why people wind up thinking they can earn their salvation and lose their salvation, or that they’ve got to do something to prove it’s really there’s.

"Because you’re over there in those books trying to make out like something is true of you when it isn’t. There’s something involved here that’s far more serious that just worrying about your money; we’re talking about your soul and your security and it living in you.”

(new article tomorrow) 

Hey, Chicago, what'dya say? 'Go, Cubs, go'?

Here’s a trivia question: How did the current Cubs baseball stars, including Manager Joe Maddon, eagerly connect themselves on August 6 to the celebration of the psychedelic “free love” 1960s counterculture—everything from cocaine smuggling and ingesting LSD to orgies, brothels and murder?

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, “The Cubs dressed the part Sunday for their trip to San Francisco . . . Everybody wore motorcycle vests with their nicknames emblazoned on the left side as part of an ‘Easy Rider’ (movie) theme dreamt up by strength and conditioning coach Tim Buss.

“ ‘Anything you can do to unify the group is always a good thing,’ Manager Joe Maddon said. ‘It’s fun. And for the group that doesn’t understand it, that’s too bad that you’ve forgotten what it’s like to be a kid. It’s always too bad when you forget what it’s like to be a kid.’ ”

The same story, as per the sports pages of the Chicago Tribune:

 " 'I don't know that we've had enough fun this year, quite frankly,' Maddon said.  'And a lot of that comes with winning, obviously. That's just the natural residue of winning, that you have more fun. ... I just think this is good timing for right now.' The Easy Rider trip, which stemmed from the brain of strength coach Tim Buss, had players wearing black leather motorcycle vests in honor of the 1969 biker movie starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper."

*****

Reading this in the paper and then checking the internet to see images of the Cubs’ most recognized players dressed like Hell’s Angels, sporting full motorcycle gang-like attire, I was instantly reminded of how I saw pictures of the Cubs team last year where, as some sort of initiation aimed to "humiliate" rookie players, they dressed as girls with bikinis, frilly skirts, makeup, stockings, on and on.

I was also immediately reminded of how, in a much-anticipated live appearance on Saturday Night Live only a few days following their 2016 World Series win, star players Anthony Rizzo, Dexter Fowler and David Ross, wearing just shorts and a vest over their bare chests, aggressively “humped” this old lady with their private parts, then did what is called “twerking” on the woman. Rizzo, who suggestively rubbed himself just above his crotch, said, “It's your lucky night; we're about to pull a triple-header.” The skit is proudly made available for young and old to see on MLB.com, the official website for Major League Baseball.

*****    

Here’s one more trivia question: In Bible scholar Alexander Hislop’s unparalleled classic from 1853, The Two Babylons, what does he say Nimrod, the leader responsible for building the Tower of Babel and initiating Baal worship, invented as a means of controlling the people?

As Jordan explains in an old study I have on cassette tape, “Hislop says Nimrod developed arena sports. He pointed out, ‘You have the great arena sports to get the people’s minds off of God and to control them and homogenize them.’ The sports give them the semblance and feeling of independent thinking because they can choose who they root for. That’s part of the contest and the excitement, but you’ve got them controlled by the contest, too.”

(to be continued tomorrow)

Compromise and you become a Jaazaniah

Over and over in the Old Testament you see how the Israelis are just like the heathen around them, in total idolatry.

Ezekiel 8:11-12 says, “And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up. Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.”

Jordan explains, “Those are the 70 elders that rule the nation like in Numbers 11 when Moses established them back there. Here are the leaders, the hierarchies, the ancients of the nations. The leaders of the nation and what do they do?

“These people, in the chambers of their heart down inside, are imagining vain things. Ezekiel 14:3 says, ‘Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?’

“He’s showing you what’s in the heart of these men. You understand these men were still the priests of the Lord. They were the leaders of Israel in the temple of God! They had the outward form of the true worship but their heart wasn’t worshipping God. Their heart was serving Baal.

*****

Ezekiel continues writing in chapter 8, ‘He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

[14] Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.’

“Tammuz was the son of the goddess of the sun. In the Baal worship system there’s always a Madonna and child. Tammuz is the baby and he has two tremendous things happen in his life. One is he’s killed. Then, later on, he’s resurrected.

“He dies in the fall of the year as the ‘god of agriculture,’ and as the winter approaches, and in the spring of the year, he’s resurrected. These women are weeping not for their sin, or the judgment of God that’s coming; they’re weeping for Tammuz, of all things!

“Verse 15 says, ‘And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.’

“You see what these guys are doing? They’re in the temple and they’re making out like they’re worshipping Jehovah and yet they’re really just eyeball deep in Baal worship.

*****

“Verse 17 says ‘they put the branch to their nose.’ That’s quite a statement, isn’t it? Do you know there's four times in the Old Testament the Lord Jesus is called by the title ‘the Branch': Isaiah 4, Jeremiah 23 and Zechariah 3 and 6. Each one of those four references is a reference to a particular characteristic of the Lord Jesus Christ, reflected in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. It’s a fascinating portrait of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Author of life.

“This idolatrous system here has taken that title 'the Branch' and developed their own idolatrous source of life. They say, 'God is love, therefore love is God,' and the highest act a man can perform is to create life.

"That’s the reason for the tremendous sexual abominations that were involved in this—in fact, the word used is the word for 'phallus.' It's the Greek 'phalex' that later on shows up.

“When we say someone's  ‘thumbing their nose at God,’ that’s the modern-day derivative of this term here. The Italians have a vulgar, vile gesture that they use that’s a similar kind of a thing. They just show the earthy, abominable nature and that’s what’s going on there.

*****

“Now, they are apostates. They started in the truth and they had the Word of God and there’s a tremendous example in Ezekiel 8:11.

“II Kings 22:8 says, ‘And Hilkiah the high priest said unto Shaphan the scribe, I have found the book of the law in the house of the LORD. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.’

“By the way, that image of jealousy there in the passage, prophetically, is the Antichrist. But historically it’s a reference back to the image Manasseh set up in the temple. He set up the idols.

“Folks, Israel carried idols with them from the time they left Egypt. In fact, when they wandered those 40 years in the wilderness they carried the idols around in an idolatrous tabernacle for them to live in the wilderness! They never did get rid of that stuff!

“That’s why whenever one of those kings gets right he always goes out and busts up a bunch of images. Those things are sitting over in the corner of the temple and they get them out and dust them off every now and then and start worshipping them and making new ones.

“Well, Manasseh does all that and Josiah comes along and they have a tremendous revival under him in II Kings 22:8. Here’s the reason the revivals came along. It’s because the Word of God begins to be spread in their midst again.

“Shaphan is a tremendous influence in Israel’s history and he’s a tremendous figure in the revival under Josiah, going out and teaching the Word and the truth of God. He had three boys and two of them are good friends of Jeremiah. They’re mentioned in the Book of Jeremiah. This one here, Jaazaniah, is a total apostate.

“I mean, folks, the idea here that the son of this illustrious and God-fearing scribe could become a leader among the idolatrous animal worshippers of Baal, in the midst of Israel’s temple, no doubt was a living example to Daniel of the fruits of compromise and the result of it.

“You know something, I have never seen, and I don’t think you’ve ever seen, one legitimate reason to compromise one truth. Daniel knew that. You know where compromise always leads? You become a Jaazaniah, burning incense in the house of God, of the devil.”