It's Mammon Madness time

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, “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.”

*****

"One of the most powerful truths in the Bible is that money, economics, business and commerce are at their very foundation spiritual systems,” writes Paul McGuire and Troy Anderson, authors of the 2015 book, The Babylon Code: Solving the Bible's Greatest End-Times Mystery. “This was commonly known in ancient Babylon and has been passed down through the various empires such as Egypt, Greece and Rome, and institutions such as the international banking system set up by the Bavarian Illuminati in the late 18^th Century.

“The very wealthiest people in the world are fully aware of this, and that is why the select few who actually control the world’s wealth belong to organizations such as Skull & Bones, Bohemian Grove, and the Bilderberg Group. The elite understand that ultimately the economy is connected to a Luciferian spiritual-economic system . . .

“Embedded within the secret teachings of Babylon is a code—one based on satanic power—to control money, government, and humanity. This secret has been passed down from generation to generation through occult societies with an untold number of different names. Remember, it’s all about subterfuge and secrecy.”

*****

An old axiom says, “All it takes is ignorance to start serving evil. Ignorance is the first step towards becoming an employee of dark forces.”

As “the god of this world,” Satan has a religion he seeks to propagate and the core of it surrounds the issue of a person’s relationship with his Creator or lack thereof. Religion, at its most basic, is designed to substitute confidence in the flesh for trust in Jesus Christ.

“If mammon-worship were a dominant religion, just as political leaders in ancient Rome sought the gods' blessings for their endeavours, those of today might turn to the financial sector, (and) even rivals for public office might be expected to share this faith,” suggests financial writer Savitri Hensman in London’s The Guardian newspaper.

“Sometimes sacred mysteries are open only to the initiated – rather like the inner workings of the City of London,” he writes. “In the case of a world religion, there may be linked spaces with names that also resonate among believers, not dissimilar to Wall Street . . .

“Likewise, top bankers, because of their supposed access to esoteric knowledge, might be put in charge of areas of policy, such as welfare reform, of which they know nothing.

“Sometimes religions compete openly for converts and influence, but other faiths may expand by assimilating potential rivals. If this were the main strategy of mammon's priests, they might tolerate and even embrace other belief systems but seek subtly (maybe even unconsciously) to steer them towards the true path. Christian, New Age, humanist or whatever, all would be welcomed, provided they played down aspects of their faith that might pose a challenge to mammon's dominance.”

*****

“When I Corinthians 2 says the ‘natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him,’ Paul’s talking about trusting, valuing, treasuring who you are in yourself and your ability to perform. He’s talking about pride and self-satisfaction,” explains Jordan.

“Proverbs says, ‘Every man does that which is right in his own eyes.’ Can you relate to that? We do what WE think is right. It says, ‘There’s a way that seemeth right to a man; the end thereof is death.’

“Man says, ‘I’m doing what’s right in my mind . . .’ and there’s a pride in that. There’s a self-satisfaction in that and that’s what religion is all about.

*****

“When Paul says in Philippians 3:7, ‘But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ,’ gain is the idea of wealth, treasure.

“Notice he says, ‘I wasted it and profited in the Jews’ religion above many mine equals in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous of traditions of my fathers.’

“You see he says he profited? He’s saying, ‘Those things that brought profit to me; those things I treasured and adored and thought were the most wonderful, solid, enriching things in my life.’

“What were they? He’s going to list some ethnic and racial things—some pride of race and pride of place kinds of things. And then he’s going to list some religious things; distinctions, performance.

“Can I tell you, those are the two things most people—those are the two things your flesh wants to glory in. It wants to glory in your race, which is another way of saying the 'place' that you have, and then it wants to glory in religion—the achievements it can make.

*****

“Your flesh has a tendency toward the lascivious, the earthy; the lust and the pull to be run by the desires that drag you downward into the earth. But you also have a bent toward aestheticism, toward the ability to pride yourself and satisfy yourself in doing what you think is right.

“It’s to do good and feel good about doing it. Your flesh is such a deceiver. ‘The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked.’ Romans 7:18 says, ‘For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing.’

  

“And the moment you think you’ve done something good, the moment you sit in relaxation with your satisfaction about what you’ve performed, ‘Let him who thinketh he stand take heed lest he fall.’

“Saved or lost, that’s where your flesh is. That’s religion and that’s why I say this is the MOST dangerous battle you’ll ever face. This is where the real big game is. People like to argue about prophecy and politics and all the rest of the stuff, but this is the BIG stuff.”

(new article tomorrow)

Here's the Bible's Deep State:

The Bible makes it very clear people get eaten. During the upcoming tribulation, some believing Israelites are going to be eaten.

Revelation 20 talks about those who don't take "the mark of the beast." They get beheaded.

"Now, when you make a sacrifice, how do you do it?" asks Jordan. "One thing is they cut off their heads. You put a chalice under there and catch that blood, then hold that stuff up and you’ve got a drink offering."

*****

The symbol of Israel in the Bible is the “burning bush,” not the Star of David, which the Book of Amos identifies as the star of Israel's Caananite god Moloch, associated with child sacrifice.

An internet entry reads, "The elites seem to worship Molech and Baphomet. Molech is the owl from the Bohemian Grove and Baphomet is the satanic goat man with breasts."

Amos 5:26 reads, “But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves."

"That six-pointed Star of David is really a symbol of a pagan god who infested the nation with pagan religion in the time of the Prophet Amos and before," explains Jordan. "And there’s a reason they would use a star. There’s a reason the Mohammedans use the crescent moon and that kind of stuff.

“There's a whole raft of pagan religions in that part of the world dating to ancient times that worship the heavens. It all goes back to Genesis 11 when 'they built a tower to reach to heaven,' and they corrupted the constellations and the signs and messages in the heavens into pagan use.”

*****

Stars in the Bible are symbols and representatives of certain kinds of creatures, such as angels. Satan and his angels are compared to the falling stars.

Just look at this great passage about the Second Advent in Mark 13: “But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light,
[25] And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
[26] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
[27] And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.”

What God was doing in the six days He made the earth was actually recreating the fallen creation that had been destroyed by the satanic rebellion of the angels in heaven.

“He restored it and placed man on it to subdue it, bringing it back under the headship of the Lord Jesus Christ to win it back,” explains Jordan. “When you read Genesis, you realize God only gave Adam the responsibility to run things.

“Adam and Eve faced the Adversary that first week and failed. By the way, Thursday is the day they failed and that’s the fifth day."

*****

After the Flood, God’s plain mandate was “to scatter and replenish the earth,” but the populace purposed, "We’re going to build us a religious system and cathedral and we’re going to get up on top of that sky-high monument (think skyscrapers) and offer sacrifices to our gods."

The thinking was after Nimrod’s: “Unite together, amalgamate everybody and be our own gods, doing all things our own way.”

As R. Dawson Barlow writes in his 2004 book, The Origin of the Races, “It was the human philosophical mindset (which is NOT unlike ‘modern’ humanism) that was responsible for the construction of the Tower of Babel. That product of depraved human reasoning also later developed into a theme of false worship that continues throughout the Bible, and even to our own present time.

“In Revelation 17 and 18, the prophetic Scriptures describe the event when God will deal with another manifestation of this false religious and political system, called ‘Mystery Babylon.’

"This monstrous system is alive today operating under many aliases (including within Christendom) and gaining greater momentum each year. It will be a dominant power at the time of the Second Advent of Jesus Christ to the earth. It is that same mighty system He will destroy at His coming.”

*****

Jordan explains, “The beginning of Nimrod’s kingdom was Babel in the land of Shinar, and if you remember in Daniel 1, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, went into Jerusalem and took them back into the land of Shinar into ‘the houses of his gods,’ which is the same thing.

“Nimrod built Nineveh, which was the capital of Assyria, and the city Rehoboth, a word that means ‘the city of boulevards.’ What he builds is a great metropolitan city of hustling and bustling Fifth Avenues, 42^nd Streets, State streets, Madison Avenues and all the rest.

“And it says Resen, the city between Nineveh and Calah, was a great city. The word Resen means ‘a bit’ or ‘a bridle.’ And he would have named it after the ability to control things. Resen—that’s like saying Wall Street or LaSalle Street—represents the power that goes with the concentration of economic and social activity in a metro area, and Nimrod controls it all."

(new article tomorrow)

Truth's initiator and responder

Jesus Christ says in Luke 24:39, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”

Paul says in I Corinthians 15:50, “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

Jordan explains, “This is where the idea of blood poisoning came from. Adam and Eve had something flowing through their veins but it was not contaminated blood that had to be shed for remission of sins as you find later on. ‘Male and female created he them,’ we’re told.

“Well, the man is the initiator and the woman is the responder. The man is the intellect; he’s the one who is to think and operate on volition. The woman is the emotional side. She is to respond to his will. Just like in you there is a will and your emotions are to respond to your will and when that functions properly you function the way God intended it.

“The man is the determiner and the prime mover. The woman is the emotional comparison. Men are more cerebral and women have more of an emotional intuition. It’s an ability to FEEL things that’s intuitive.

“You need to dwell with her according to knowledge, Peter says. You need to understand her makeup and that she’s made to be a responder and she’s going to respond and give you back what you give to her. When they do that, they’re one flesh, verse 24 says. One complete humanity. One person.

“Marriage is the reconstruction of man; it’s the completion of man. Man has that part that was taken out of him and put back in him and they become one functioning unit. Eve put back into Adam in marriage results and the reconstruction of the original item and the ability to function the way God created them to function.

“Neither the man nor the woman can be completely whole without the other because they’re interdependent, but since the fall sin has so disrupted this divine order that the oneness is never completely achievable. You’re never going to completely, totally achieve it in this life, but you can get close, and the more compatible you are with walking in the Spirit (the way God intends you to walk) the closer you get to it.

*****

“There’s an idea that floats around that says Adam’s original wholeness was he was male and female and he was bisexual and that’s just nonsense. The teaching is then said that because Adam’s made in the image of God and the likeness of God, therefore God is male and female in one. Again, that’s just not true.

“When you take two elements and combine them together they have qualities and a nature of their own. You take oxygen and hydrogen and you can combine two hydrogen and one oxygen molecule and you come up with water. Now you can’t breathe water; it will suffocate you. But it’s got oxygen in it that you need to live!

“Oxygen and hydrogen are compressible gases. Both of them you can compress them, put them in cylinders, compress them down, put them under pressure and store them. You’ve seen hydrogen cylinders and oxygen tanks. But you put them together to form the compound of water—water is non-compressible.

“So you take two compressible gases, put them together and it forms a liquid that is non-compressible. When you combine two separate things you form a new nature.

“So it isn’t that Adam was talking to himself inside and feeling some female and male hormones. Adam was Adam out of whom could be taken . . . Adam was neither simply male nor simply female; he was Adam out of whom those male and female elements could be separated and they are separated now.

“When you put the man and the woman back together you’re recreating that wholeness. That can be understood in some measure when you understand what marriage is in its ultimate. Don’t let somebody take a passage like that and say therefore God is male and female and all that kind of stuff.

*****

“From the family you separate off the marriage unit and you can’t have a successful family without it being built on the institution of marriage.

“You leave your father and mother, folks, and then you cleave unto your spouse. You separate yourself and establish yourselves as a new and separate entity and a man must accept the responsibility for accomplishing that, including establishing a marriage wherein his wife is protected.

“In the issue of marriage, the husband is the head and the wife is the helpmeet. The wife comes along with her husband and is joined to him and her purpose is to fulfill him; to make him a larger, bigger person than he is by himself. To complete him; to be his helpmeet. The one who mirrors him. The one who answers to him.  Adam is no longer sufficient and complete in himself; he needs this woman to come along and to complete him.

“God created Eve for the purpose of being married to Adam. It’s a creation institution and it’s the basic stabilizer of the human race and of society and, folks, families won’t function without the institution of marriage as its base.

*****

“You read the passage in Genesis 29 and there ain’t no doubt about it, there isn’t no ‘I Dos’ there. I mean, here’s Jacob and he’s worked for seven years--he’s got an agreement with Rachel’s daddy that he can have her to be his wife and he doesn’t get Rachel; he gets Leah. The old man tricked him.

“He had a daughter he wanted him to marry first so he tricked him, but the point is when he went in unto her who had been his pledged wife, he went in expecting it to be Rachel and it turned out to be Leah, and going in unto her and having the intimate relationships that he had with her, as far as the situation in Scripture is concerned, she became his wife and there wasn’t any ceremony and any ‘I Do’ kind of a thing. It just was done. There’s more involved in marriage and the reason we call the consummation of marriage ‘the marriage act’--the reason that thing is there is that’s involved in marriage.

“In the Bible, marriage is more than a church institution. You see the church, especially the Roman Church, is the one who instituted the ceremony of marriage as a religious institution. It’s one of the seven sacraments of the Roman Church and that’s where that kind of a thing comes from where, if you hadn’t stood in front of a preacher or priest and had the thing blessed by the church, then you’re not really married.

“On the other hand, there’s more involved in it than just going to bed with each other.  Sex and sexual relations are not what marriage is in the Bible either. Marriage demands this kind of a vow and a covenant. Malachi 2:14 says, ‘Yet ye say, Wherefore? Because the LORD hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously: yet is she thy companion, and the wife of thy covenant.’ That means being his helpmeet.”

Getting on with our capacity for power

Do you want to be all that you can be? 

“Can I tell you that your ability to be truly fully human is hindered by your sin," says Jordan. "Jesus Christ came to demonstrate, put on display, that real lasting life comes only in obedience to God.

“Christ came to show us, ‘If you really want to know what it’s like to be truly human, truly a person—a full complete person—look at me!’

“The idea is to make a difference by BEING different. It’s the opposite of pride, independence, self-will, unbelief, which is where the flesh lives; where our old life in Adam was centered.

*****

“The Bible doesn’t use clichés. When Paul says, ‘For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain,’ that becomes a cliché. So does, ‘I’m crucified with Christ nevertheless I live.’

"We make clichés out of verses that are not clichés so the Bible comes along and details it for you: ‘Okay, here’s exactly what it looks like in life.’ J. Vernon McGee used to say, ‘Here’s what it is in shoe leather.’

“Paul starts Ephesians 4 with, [1] I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called,
[2] With all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love;
[3] Endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

"Lowliness and meekness are mental attitudes. The issue isn’t what I’m doing; it’s the attitude I have while I’m doing it, because life comes out of my thinking.

*****

“In Acts 20, Paul is describing his ministry to the Ephesian elders. He writes, [19] Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews:

“The first thing they knew about Paul is that his entire life was about serving the Lord. Here’s a man whose life was about ‘walking worthy of the vocation wherewith you are called.’ Notice how he describes it: ‘Serving the Lord with all humility of mind.’

“Lowliness is a thinking process out of humility, not out of pride. He says, ‘With many tears and temptations.’ Paul understood the persecutions that went along with his serving the Lord, his place with that humility of mind.

“He says to the Corinthians, ‘The things that befall me daily, the care of the churches.’ He understood what it was to have tears for people; to have a heart concern for people. Temptation is the stuff from without; the lying in wait of the Jews.

*****

“There’s a point in the Book of Acts where a big group of guys got together and swore they wouldn’t eat until they killed Paul. Paul’s nephew heard about it. I mean, everywhere Paul went there were people trying to trick him, put him in jail, assassinate him.

"He tells you about his journeyings ‘in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren.’

“He was in peril ALL the time. Paul wasn’t doing this stuff long distance; they were aiming at HIM! With you, somebody just says something cross-eyed and you get mad; you get all offended.

“He says in II Timothy, ‘Wherein I suffer trouble, as an evil doer, even unto bonds.’ The dude’s a jailbird. The townspeople said, ‘Well, you know who they’re following down there at Ephesus? That guy’s got a record; a rap sheet.’

“ ‘Oh, what he’d do?’ ‘He’s out there preaching this Jesus stuff about a resurrection.’ ‘What happened?’ ‘Well, he caused a riot over there in Thessalonica and they had to come in and get a peace bond and run him out of town.’

“It was an open assault, and Paul did it with humility of mind rather than, ‘Hey, wait a minute, I’m the Apostle of the Gentiles; I’m God’s man!’ You know, ‘Touch not the Lord’s anointed.’ You’ve heard preachers say that, but do they have any idea where that verse is? You ought to ask one sometime.

*****

“There’s no outbreak of pride; no religion trying to make a fair show in the flesh. Instead there’s what Paul writes in Philippians 3, ‘Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.’

“The message is, ‘Don’t think of yourself above that which ye ought.’ Paul would say, ‘By the grace of God I am what I am. It was only His grace that saved me from where I was going.’

“Paul knew that little poem, ‘In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear, until a new object caught my sight, and stopped my wild career.’ That was Paul. By the way, that was you and me, if you remember.

“Paul understood who he was and that’s the opposite of pride. So in your life and ministry, it starts out with this lowliness of mind. This consciousness of who we really are and the issue isn’t us; it’s Him.

“The tricky thing about pride is that we usually don’t recognize it until it’s grown into full-blown arrogance. It starts out with self-justification. We say, ‘Oh, well, we’re just being assertive.’ Where did that come from? It didn’t come from lowliness of mind.

*****

“Now, that word meekness is interesting because people say, ‘Well, I’m not weak.’ Meek and weak aren’t spelled the same. He didn’t say mousy.

“Go to Numbers 12: [1] And Miriam and Aaron spake against Moses because of the Ethiopian woman whom he had married: for he had married an Ethiopian woman.
[2] And they said, Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us? And the LORD heard it.
[3] (Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.)

“Here’s the problem there: ‘And the Lord heard it.’ Uh-oh. You know what they were doing? They were dead wrong. The Lord’s going to tell them, ‘The only person I stood face to face and talked to was Mo. Not you two; it was Moses.’ So they were wrong. They were trying to ASSUME a position God didn’t give them.

“Notice what he says about Moses: ‘He was very meek.’ Now, do you think Moses was a Milquetoast? Do you think he was a back-bencher who didn’t do anything?!

“Listen, a guy who could walk into Mr. Big, Pharaoh, and say, ‘Jehovah says to let my people go,’ and Pharaoh responds, ‘Well, who is Jehovah?! I’ve got all these gods over here; who’s that?!’

“Moses’ not a guy trembling in his boots and weak; he’s a man who has a characteristic of meekness that tells you meekness is not weakness.

*****

“Jesus says in Matthew 11:29, ‘[29] Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.

“Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ was weak? Caspar Milquetoast? Listen, people have the idea, and I’ve heard this all my life, ‘Oh, that religious crowd; it’s for women and children. Real men don’t go there!’

“Listen, if you want to find men wearing lace britches, go out on the tennis court, or the golf course in the business world. You want to find men who know how to wear the armor, get involved in the work of the ministry; it’s no place for weakness.

“Meekness is the issue of power, but it’s under control. You’ve got the power but you’re not using it independently on your own. It’s under control, and meekness is the opposite of independence.

“When Jesus said, ‘I’m meek and lowly,’ His voice was the voice that thundered on Mt. Sinai. His voice was the voice that said, ‘And let there be,’ and spoke a universe into existence. What is that? That’s power! The world came into existence by the word of His power.

“But when He said, ‘I’m meek and lowly,’ He was saying, ‘I’ve got that power under control and I’m not using it just to demonstrate power. I got a plan and, by the way, the plan is the plan of my Father.’

“Rather than being independent, meekness is the idea of being dependent. Look at the passage in John 4: [31] In the mean while his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat.
[32] But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of.
[33] Therefore said the disciples one to another, Hath any man brought him ought to eat?
[34] Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.

“The disciples don’t get it; they think He’s talking about bringing in some McDonald’s hamburgers. When Jesus says, ‘My meat is to do His will,’ He’s saying, ‘The thing that feeds my soul, that satisfies and nourishes me, is to do the will of my Father.’

“Now, Jesus is God. He’s as much God as the Father and the Holy Spirit are God. Philippians 2 says, [6] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: that it was not robbery.

“He made Himself of no reputation because in the counsel of the godhead they had a plan and Jesus Christ said, ‘I’ll go execute the plan of my Father.’ He chose to take this power, put it under control, and submit it to the plan of His Father.

“In the shadow of the Cross, He says, ‘Not my will but thy will be done.’ As the man Christ Jesus, He says, ‘The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. The flesh has got a problem but I’ll take my flesh and submit it by faith to the Father’s plan.’ That’s why Paul talks seven times about ‘the faith of Christ.’

“That’s why Zachariah talks about His meek and lowly coming and His coming in power and glory. That’s two sides of the same Messiah.

*****

“Paul said, ‘You know what the unity of the Spirit is going to look like? You know what walking worthy of the Lord is going to look like for you? It’s going to be a life of humility of mind.’

“You’re not going to be strutting your stuff. It’s going to be the opposite of pride. It’s going to be a walk where the power that is yours--the identity that is yours--is going to be DEPENDANT on the Father’s will. It’s going to be a life of longsuffering where you put up with it for a long time. That’s the opposite of self-will.

“When something is longsuffering, what happens to it is that you don’t quit. If you want another term for longsuffering, in my mind it would be the idea of endurance.

“To me, one of the most powerful passages on longsuffering anywhere in the Bible is in Colossians 1:9-11:

[9] For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding;
[10] That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God;
[11] Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;

“That’s just a shorthand version of the prayer at the end of Ephesians 3: [16] That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;
[17] That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love,
[18] May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;
[19] And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.
[20] Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us,
[21] Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

“It’s that your life would be under the control of the knowledge of His will. It’s that the wisdom and spiritual understanding that comes to you when you understand what God’s doing today would grip your life and have it be fully under the control of the love and grace of God revealed through the Word of God rightly divided.”

Vowing a vow unto the Lord

“We’ve seen biblical women deal with the issue of infertility in different ways,” reads an entry in The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible. “Sarah loaned her handmaiden to Abraham. Rachel bartered with Leah for aphrodisiacs and husband ‘time shares.’ Lot’s daughters got him drunk and slept with him. But Hannah stands out. She went to the house of God and prayed. She promised that if she could have a son, she would give him back to God for a lifetime of service. She was so fervent in praying that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk and reprimanded her. But when she explained, he gave her his blessing."

I Samuel I reads, [13] Now Hannah, she spake in her heart; only her lips moved, but her voice was not heard: therefore Eli thought she had been drunken.
[14] And Eli said unto her, How long wilt thou be drunken? put away thy wine from thee.
[15] And Hannah answered and said, No, my lord, I am a woman of a sorrowful spirit: I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but have poured out my soul before the LORD.

*****

Another Idiot’s Guide entry reasons, “As Adam went through the process of naming animals, he probably couldn’t help noticing peculiar behavior among the birds and bees. Adam was a singular, one-of-a-kind creature when he surely longed to be two of a kind.”

“When God talks about two becoming one flesh, hey, that’s what makes marriage marriage," says Jordan. "And when you go into that (mate) you’re doing the ultimate. Now, there’s a lot of things going up to it. There’s vows, companionship, but the covenant of agreement that you make to become one, husband and wife, and the companionship and the sharing and the molding together that you have, it all consummates and finds its ultimate expression in something that (today) is casually plagiarized.

“I Corinthians 6:16 illustrates the heinousness of illicit sex. They’re doing what constitutes marriage and it’s a light thing to them. In our society people object to what I’m saying because they have a light attitude toward the sinfulness of what we’re talking about. God Almighty means for 'one man, one woman, forever, ’til death do us part.' That’s the length of it and anything else is a violation of His intent and His will and His instructions and it’s sin.

“I Timothy 3, when it says the bishop is to be the husband of one wife, he’s supposed to be a one woman man just like this passage says he is. I know a lot people say if you got a divorce in your background you can’t be a pastor. Well, now wait a minute. You mean, if you went down before a judge and got separated from one wife and so forth . . . if a judge can destroy a marriage, a judge can make a marriage, can’t he? You see it isn’t a ceremony. Marriage and divorce isn’t something made like that.

“God takes Adam’s hand and Eve’s hand and places them together and He pronounces the marriage vows over them. He pronounces them one flesh and Jesus Christ said what God has joined together let no man put asunder. You see, it’s God joining you together!

"You’re joined together on the basis of what God said in God’s institution and that’s God doing it. And a society and a people and a church and an individual that disregards that; it’s just going to bring wreck, ruin and havoc on himself, his family and his nation because we’re talking about the very basic bedrock upon which all social order among human beings is to be based. So when you attack the family and marriage you’re attacking the thing that’s going to destroy everything.

*****

Genesis 2:25 says, [25] And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Adam and Eve didn’t have any physical clothes; they just had a complete openness without any fear, without any problems. Perhaps they had a garment on.

Psalm 104:1-2 says, [1] Bless the LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, thou art very great; thou art clothed with honour and majesty.
[2] Who coverest thyself with light as with a garment: who stretchest out the heavens like a curtain:

"Notice there’s a garment of light involved in God’s clothing," explains Jordan. "They were clothed in a raiment of translucent light that actually did cover them. They weren’t standing there with the wind blowing by and getting them cold. Of course, the guy didn’t sweat too much because sweat didn’t come ’til after the fall.”

Location, location, location

Bible history's "tale of two cities" is represented by Antioch vs. Alexandria. Think King James Bible vs. all the others.

Luke the historian writes in Acts 13:1, “Now there were in the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”

Jordan explains, “That was the church out of which the Apostle Paul’s apostolic ministry sprung up and it’s the basis of the operation from which his ministry expands. Antioch, through the first three centuries, was a powerful Bible center, a community of Bible-teaching, Bible-believing, Bible-centered activity and Paul’s basic missionary-ministry model is exemplified from Antioch.

“Now there was another town at that time interested in the Bible called Alexandria. Acts 18:24 says, ‘And a certain Jew named Apollos, born at Alexandria, an eloquent man, and mighty in the scriptures, came to Ephesus.’

“Alexandria, which is in Egypt on the Nile basin, was founded by Alexander the Great in the 3^rd Century B.C.  It had one of the seven wonders of the ancient world—the great lighthouse. But, more importantly, it had a great library with between 500,000 to 700,000 book volumes and was a great center of scholarship.

“It was the second largest city in the Roman Empire at the time of the writing of Acts and was the second largest city in the Western world. It was a center of great intellectual fervor and activity. It was the place that spawned the Septuagint legend that says a bunch of Jewish rabbinical scholars got together and translated the Old Testament into Greek.

“The authority to believe that (bunk) is a letter written by a guy who everybody says is a forgery. You read this stuff and you say, ‘Jay Leno couldn’t be this funny!’ People to this day agree to base all of their belief about the Old Testament text on a translation, the LXX Septuagint, that everybody agrees the story of how it came about is a hoax.

“I couldn’t sell you a glass of water on a hot day with that kind of a story but people say, ‘Well, the LXX. . . ’ Was there a Greek translation of the Old Testament? You bet your bottom dollar there was. Did it occur the way they say it did? Don’t bet your bottom dollar.  But the point is Alexandria was a place where this was supposed to happen because it was an intellectual center of curiosity.

 *****

As Acts 18:25 goes on to reveal that Apollos “was instructed in the way of the Lord; and being fervent in the spirit, he spake and taught diligently the things of the Lord, knowing only the baptism of John.”

Jordan says, “Apollos was eloquent, well-educated and knew how to communicate and was mighty in the Scriptures. You see, there was an interest in the Word of God at Alexandria. This man was instructed in the way of Lord, being fervent and teaching diligently, but what was Apollos’ big problem? He’s a teeny-bit out of date dispensationally. He’s only teaching the baptism of John! Well, there’s a whole lot of things that have happened since the baptism of John!

“For example, Jesus Christ has shown up. He went to the Cross, He died and was resurrected and ascended back into heaven; the Holy Spirit’s come. The next chapter you see some more of these guys—they don’t even know the Holy Spirit’s been given yet!

“Now, in  my mind, it’s kind of hard to relate…how could you be that unplugged that many years after this stuff’s happened?! I don’t know; maybe the guy’s just been in the library studying or something.

“My point to you is there is real interest in Scripture in Alexandria but they’re really not interested in and have no concept of dispensational Bible study. If you don’t understand the Word of God dispensationally, you don’t understand God’s Word.

“And if you don’t understand God’s Word, then your ability to function successfully in being ‘the pillar and the ground of the truth’ is going to be hampered. In fact, it’s going to be undermined."

(new article tomorrow)

Woven into endlessly intricate pattern

Question: What is the quote below referring to?

“You just keep reading and noticing phenomena, and after 40-plus years of studying a King James Bible and noticing this kind of phenomena over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it kind of gets under your skin,” says Jordan. “It kind of gets beyond just being, ‘Well, that’s superstition.’ The people who think it’s superstition are people who just haven’t studied it very much and seen it work out over and over.

“Now, it doesn’t work out every time, but it works out 70% of the time, and listen, in this market, if you got a winner 7 out of 10 times, you’re in pretty good shape, aren’t you? Could you imagine if you were a baseball player and you could get a hit seven out of every 10 times you were up to bat? That ain’t ever happened before. If you were a football player and seven out of  every 10 times you caught the ball it resulted in a touchdown, those would be pretty good odds there’s something there.”

***** 

Answer: Numbers

It’s endlessly fascinating to look at how intricately God weaves numbers and number patterns into His Word. The codes can be as easy or as complicated as the reader wants them to be and no human will ever even come close to discovering all of them.

“Nine, for example, is a very interesting number in the Bible because it’s the last of the single digits,” says Jordan. “The idea is you’ve come to the conclusion of something. We say it’s come to its fruition and, in the Bible, nine is connected with fruitfulness and fruit-bearing.

“If you look at Galatians 5:22-23, how many fruits of the Spirit are there? Nine. Galatians is the ninth book in the New Testament. If you count five and two and two, it’s nine. By the way, the New Testament has 27 books. Two plus seven is nine. Now, I know, that’s all just an accident. But it is interesting.”

*****

“Look at I Corinthians 12:7. It says Jesus was crucified in the ninth hour. That was a rather fruitful event. By the way, in Luke it says it was in the third hour. One’s using Roman time and one’s using Jewish time.

“In Matthew 5:3 are what we call The Beatitudes. Do you know how many ‘blesseds’ there are? Nine.

“How old was Abraham when he had Isaac? 99. That was a fruitful year for Abraham.

“Who’s the tallest man in the Bible? Deuteronomy 3:11 says Old Og, King of Basham, slept in a bed nine cubits long. That’s a big bed! A cubit is 18 inches. That guy’s got a bed that’s 12 feet long and 6 feet wide! When you want to see the fruit of the satanic rebellion among the giants, you see how tall the guy got who was the fruit of all that.

“It’s in Genesis 9 that God took those eight people off the Ark onto the earth and blessed them, and in Genesis 9:1 He told them, ‘Be fruitful.’ It’s in Genesis 9:9 that He said, ‘I behold I establish my covenant with you and your seed.’ He established His covenant with them to MAKE them fruitful.

“Nine months is the gestation period for a human child. If you’re having a real good time, you say, ‘I’m on Cloud Nine.’

“Now, I’m going to do a little heresy here. How many letters are in (the name) King James? It’s the 1611 King James Bible. Three ones and a six—that’s nine. Now, like I said, that’s just coincidence, but it is kind of fascinating.

“You go over to Jeremiah 26 and you’ll find that when old Jehudi is cutting up the Bible, it’s in the ninth month that he’s doing it. In Jeremiah 52 you’ll see that Jerusalem is destroyed in the ninth month. The fruit of unbelief is connected with the No. 9 in these examples.”

*****

“When it comes to the No. 10, most people say it represents ordinal perfection because you count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and then start over with the zero and the one. Biblically, No.10 is the number of perfection and order.

“When God gave commandments to Israel, how many were there? 10 because that’s the perfection of order. Ten is the number of ordinal completion. It’s also, because of that, how you produce ORDER in government and things. But because of that, it’s the number of the Gentiles in the Bible.

“Look at Genesis 10. The first time a Gentile shows up in the Bible by name it’s in this chapter. ‘Now these were the generations of the sons of Noah.’ There weren’t any Gentiles in the earth before Noah. The word Gentile means the nations and God didn’t divide up humanity into nations until the sons of Noah came along.

“Do you remember when we were studying the Book of Ruth, I talked to you about those tenth men in the genealogy of Christ? How Boaz is the third one of those tenth men? Do you remember who the first one was? Noah was the 10^th man from Adam in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the first to have any of his descendants identified as a Gentile and if you look at Genesis 10: 8-10 . . .

“ ‘And Cush begat Nimrod and he began to be a mighty one in the earth.’ Now, notice who Cush is. Noah has a son named Ham, who’d be the eleventh. Cush, verse 6, is Ham’s boy and Nimrod is Cush’s boy. Nimrod is going to be the 13^th from Adam.

“Now, 13 is the number of rebellion in the Bible, but just like Noah is the 10^th from Adam, Nimrod is going to be the 13^th and notice what Nimrod does. Verse 9 says he’s ‘a might hunter before the Lord’ and verse 10 says ‘the beginning of his kingdom was Babel.’

“Well, the first Gentile kingdom in the earth was established by one of the descendants of Noah, the 10^th man from Adam, and when he established that Gentile kingdom in the earth it was Babel, and when you go over to Daniel 2 and Revelation 13 and 17, how many toes does that kingdom have on it? It’s got 10.

“How many kings does it have reigning with it in Revelation 13 and 17? Ten. Ten is the number of Gentile dominion and activity in the earth. There were 10 plagues on Egypt. There were 10 nations in Genesis 15 that Israel is to war against. (Gen. 15:19)

“If you go to Psalm 119, almost every verse in that psalm talks about the Word of God. There are 10 separate titles given to God’s Word there. There are 10 psalms that begin with the word ‘hallelujah,’ meaning ‘praise the lord.’

“You know what, if you’ll study that terminology ‘hallelujah’ in the Psalms, you know what you’ll discover? Almost every time it’s a reference to excitement about God destroying some Gentiles and delivering Israel. It’s one of those weird words and when you hear people going around hollering ‘Hallelujah!’ and ‘Praise the Lord!’ sometimes some of the verses they get that out of isn’t so good.

“Do you remember the parable in Luke 19 where Jesus gives the pound to His servants and says, ‘Go occupy while I’m gone to heaven to receive the kingdom’? The guy is given 10 pounds and when Christ comes back, He rewards him with authority over 10 Gentile cities.

“Galatians 5:19 gives the works of the flesh. Adultery, one; fornication, two; uncleanness three; lasciviousness, four; idolatry, five; witchcraft, six; hatred, seven; variance, eight; emulation, nine . . . See what the tenth is? It’s wrath. What’s God’s attitude toward the earth because of their rejection of His truth? The No. 10 has to do with bringing order into the government of the universe and it focuses on the Gentiles.

“By the way, it’s in Acts 10 that that famous Gentile in the Book of Acts, Cornelius, gets saved. And you go through the Word of God and you’ll find 10 connected with Gentiles and with the government in the hands of Gentiles.”

*****

As a Bible number, 11 points to incompleteness and is, in essence, one short of where you ought to be.

It’s in chapter 11 of Genesis that the Tower of Babel is identified and it’s one short of chapter 12 where Abraham shows up.

“You remember in Matthew 28 and Mark 16 where it talks about ‘the eleven, the eleven, the eleven’?” says Jordan. “That’s a title given to the 12 apostles when one of them, Judas, has fallen away. And that’s what the No. 11 is branded with all through the Bible. It’s the idea, ‘You’re just not quite there.’ The apostles were incomplete when there were eleven of them. Eleven is just not quite enough.

“When Israel leaves Egypt in Deuteronomy 1 they go toward the Promised Land and Deuteronomy 1 says they went 11 days. If they had just gone one more day they’d have gotten there. They were one day short.”

*****

Twelve is the number of governmental perfection and that’s the reason it’s the number associated with the nation Israel, God’s government nation in the earth. There are 12 apostles who will sit upon 12 thrones judging over the 12 tribes of Israel.

“It’s in Genesis 12 that God calls Abraham out to be His man and makes the covenant with him,” says Jordan. “In Exodus 12 He calls the nation out of Egypt. In Revelation 12:1 you see the woman with the stars and you have Israel identified.

“You go over to I Kings with Solomon and he’s got 12 officers; 12 spies that go and spy out the land. Twelve is just the number of the nation Israel all through the Bible.

“In Job 38 you see the universe is ordered according to this. Recently we were looking at Book of Joshua where he brought Israel across the Jordan River there and He put 12 stones in the river bed and then put 12 stones over on the Canaan side on the land. Twelve stones represented the 12 tribes of Israel. Elisha goes up on Carmel and makes an altar but he makes it out of twelve stones because 12 is the number of Israel.

“In Job 38:22-33, Mazzaroth is the name for the Zodiac. There’s the 12 signs and there are 12 constellations in the Zodiac. The way God organized the earth is the way He’s organized the heavens because the government He established on the earth is a reflection of the government He’s established in the heavens. And that’s why over there in Revelation 21, when John goes into the New Jerusalem, he sees the 12 apostles and the 12 foundations and the 12 gates. He sees that tree of life and it bears 12 fruit because there are people who are going to be taken by the Body of Christ off of Planet Earth into those positions put out there and the whole universe is ordered according to that.

“The earth is the command center for the angelic government. Where Christ is where the command center is. That’s why Jacob said in Genesis 29, ‘I perceive that this piece of real estate I’m sleeping on is the gate of heaven. The government of heaven is here.’ ”

*****

Here's an old article from 2/22/11 entitled "Ruth’s Tent Man Tenth Man":

The Book of Ruth, probably written by Samuel, is an infinitely charming Old Testament book with only four chapters, 85 verses and 2,578 words.

There is, in fact, only one other book in the Bible with a woman’s name: Esther. Ruth is a Gentile who marries a Jew and Esther is a Jew who marries a Gentile. Both of these books are books of history, typology and doctrine. Someone once said, “Ruth is one of the richest rewards of truly knowing the scripture.”

“Heart history appeals to people who have a heart,” says Jordan. “The stories that are based in appeal to affections are the things that attract people, and Ruth is that way. There’s always a charm in a book that is filled with typology, and the main characters in Ruth are all pictures of God’s dealings with the nation Israel, and especially in the kinsman redeemer Boaz, who is a type of Christ.

Ruth is a love story that is very much a true story. More importantly, it’s a book of prophecy and doctrine in typology, written during the early part of David’s reign before he had Solomon.

Jordan explains, “Ruth takes place during the deep dark period of Judges but isn’t recorded until the early reign of David because Boaz is the predecessor of David. David is in Boaz’ line and Boaz is one of those key people who are in the Messiah’s line and now David can be Israel’s king. So, in that interlude between David and Solomon, where God is teaching Israel how He will work on their behalf, He writes a little book because the first thing Israel needs when there under all that judgment is for Him to be their Kinsman Redeemer.

“And the first thing the Davidic covenant provides for them is a redeemer. And so the little book of Ruth, nestled as it is between Judges and the ministry of Samuel. . . in the Book of Judges you see the doctrine of the Kinsman Redeemer--you see Gideon the deliverer and Samson the avenger and God ministering through the weaknesses of Israel and bringing about His purpose.

"You’re seeing those things God will do to redeem Israel and you see David and Solomon as the king and the one who brings the blessing of prosperity to them. Those are the mandates God has in the Davidic covenant that will be accomplished in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.

*****

Between the first two cycles of the five cycles of judgment laid out in Leviticus 6 there was a period of respite. The first cycle, as said, covers the dark ages of the Book of Judges, where the book of Ruth took place, but then there’s sort of a respite from Samuel through the reigns of David and Solomon.

The Book of Judges isn’t written until that respite period comes on the scene. During the reign of David, they reach back into Judges and pull out a story of Ruth and Boaz. In fact, the story’s pulled out of the lineage of King David. In his ancestors is a story about the Kinsman Redeemer that is doctrine attached to that period of respite.

Ruth 2:1 says, “And Naomi had a kinsman of her husband's, a mighty man of wealth, of the family of Elimelech; and his name was Boaz.” The term kinsman is used about a dozen times in the book. Unger’s Bible Handbook is the first to refer to Ruth as “the romance of redemption.”

Jordan explains, “When you start at the beginning of the genealogy of Christ and count down the first ten guys you come to Noah. The tenth one in Shem’s line (the line of Christ) was Abraham. Boaz is the third tenth man.

Matthew 1:5 says, “And Salmon begat Booz of Rachab; and Booz begat Obed of Ruth; and Obed begat Jesse.”

Jordan says, “That’s why the Book of Ruth is there to tell you who Boaz is. By the way, you can go on through the Old Testament and find those other tenth men and find their significance. It’s fascinating.

“The Book of Ruth isn’t just a little ditty that just happened to be passed on from campfire to campfire; ‘Let’s just put it in the Bible because we happen to have it around.’ Ruth is put there in the Bible to teach some doctrine about the kinsman redeemer, about Israel’s need to be redeemed.

“Boaz has some real insightful wisdom and a determined commitment and an undeterred love for Ruth to get the job of redemption done. By the way, the name Boaz means ‘in his is strength’ and he’s the redeemer who gets the job done! The picture is of the Messiah. It’s Israel in the time of Jacob’s trouble being saved by her Messiah who comes, by the way, out of Bethlehem.”

(new article tomorrow)