God's definition of a friend

Hank Williams got the tune for "I Saw the Light" from the classic southern hymn, "He Set Me Free." The resemblance to the old standby can easily be heard listening to the chorus.

 Part of the hymn lyrics go, "The Comforter divine is dwelling

Within my soul today;
His love to others I am telling
Since Jesus came to stay."

Tucked inside Deuteronomy 13:6 is the greatest definition of a friend found anywhere in the Bible or in literature:

[6] If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers;

Jordan explains, “It’s one of those verses in the Bible that tells you about a topic when it isn’t talking about the topic. There’s a lot of things in Scripture where it's, ‘I write this and I’m teaching you about this,’ and then there will be a comment added in that you look at it and say, ‘Wow, that’s some real understanding about something else, too!’

 “Notice how he defines a friend for you. You know who the son of your mother is. You know your brother. You know who your wife is, but what about your friend? Moses said ‘your friend which is as your own soul.’ Here’s somebody where it’s more than just a surface relationship. You’ve got a soul connection.

 “ ‘With the heart man believeth unto righteousness,’ Romans 10 says. Your soul has a way of communicating, a way of knowing. The mentality of your soul in the Bible is called your heart.

Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.’

“We use a phrase: we talk about our ‘soul mate.’ That comes out of Deuteronomy 13:6. People don’t know where they got it from but that’s where it comes from.

"There’s a connection in a deeper, inner level of the heart. ‘As a man thinketh in his heart.’ We’ve got a thinking process that connects us together and makes us one on a level that’s much different than just the surface level.

“That helps you when you read John 15:15: Verse 15: [15] Henceforth I call you not servants; for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you.

"A servant doesn’t know some things but the friend does. A friend is somebody who’s as your own soul. You pour out your inner being to them; you tell them what’s inside, what’s in your thinking, what’s in your heart.

"In the passage, Jesus Christ and the apostles have left the Upper Room and they’re now walking on the way to the Garden, and Christ continues the conversation with them, saying to them, ‘Ye are my friends if you do whatsoever I command you.’

“In other words, a friend is somebody who can think and do like Christ thinks.

"Jesus said, ‘I’ve called you friends because I’ve told you. I haven’t sent you out without a sense of what’s going on. I’ve communicated with you all the things the Father has given to me.’

"A friend is someone who gets information that no one else has access to. Now, you know that in personal relationships, but when it’s talking about Scripture, the idea here is that to be a friend you’re going to get all of the information.

 “The reason that’s important…come with me to the Book of James. James 2: [21] Was not Abraham our father justified by works, when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

[22] Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?
[23] And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

"The first person in the Bible ever called ‘the friend of God’ is Abraham. The reason he’s called that is because he obeyed some specific instructions God gave him, and when God gave him information that he hadn’t given to anybody else, Abraham stood on that information. It allowed him to be called ‘the Friend of God.’ Not just the servant who doesn’t know what his master does, but the friend who is taking action based upon something the Father told him to do.

“II Chronicles 20:7 is where he’s called ‘the friend of God.’ The verse says, [7] Art not thou our God, who didst drive out the inhabitants of this land before thy people Israel, and gavest it to the seed of Abraham thy friend for ever? You see when Abraham is called the friend of God, he’s called that in connection with his seed.

*****

“Ephesians 2:11 says, [11] Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

"If you were an alien and a stranger that’s as opposite as you can be from being a friend and the reason God made this distinction between the Gentiles down here and the circumcision (Israel) up there, those people up there were His friends and these people down here were aliens and strangers.

“The people in Israel were a friend and it had to do with the fact God had given them some information He didn’t give anybody else.

“One of the great verses about that is in Exodus 33:11: [11] And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle. God was communicating to Israel what he was going to do.;

*****

“A verse that demonstrate how the term ‘friend’ is used in the Bible is in Proverbs 17:9: ‘He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends.’

“Notice gossip and evil reports separate friends. Well, the implication there is a friend is someone who’s not separated from you, who’s one with you, who’s a companion. Verse 17 says, ‘A friend loveth at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.’

“A friend is somebody where circumstances and your conduct and that kind of stuff isn’t really the issue. They have a value and esteem for you and they’re going to love you regardless of what the circumstances in your life are; regardless what the adversity that comes in life will be.

“Proverbs 18:24 says, ‘A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’

“It’s kind of a two-way street and ‘there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.’ The context is found in verse 22: ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the LORD.’ Who he’s talking about is really your spouse.

“A friend is somebody who will be more loyal to you and value and esteem you more than a family member. My point is friendship is something esteemed very highly in God’s Word.

“Probably the most famous friend quote in the Scripture is when Judas approaches the Lord Jesus Christ in the Garden to betray Him and the Lord Jesus Christ looks at him and He says, ‘Hail, friend.’

“That title that Jesus is using comes out of a verse in Psalm 41:9: ‘Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.’ Christ quoted part of that verse in John 13 when He was with His apostles in the Upper Room.

“This is a song of David, and when David historically is writing it, he’s talking about Ahitophel, his friend. Prophetically it turns out to be talking about the Lord Jesus Christ and the one who’s going to betray him.

“So what’s a friend? It’s somebody I’ve trusted. Here’s somebody that I’ve had close communion with. He’s closer than a brother. Here’s somebody I trust with my heart and here’s somebody I sit at the table . . . I share what belongs to me with this person and if it’s mine, it’s theirs. And if I have it, then they can consume it. They’re with me. And we’re not just attached together because of work or circumstances—we have an attachment together based upon esteem and value for one another.”

(new article tomorrow)

Passing over to the other side

“Don’t do anything that doesn’t require faith,” advises a preacher. “The key to momentum is to always having something in faith to look forward to; something to anticipate. We live by faith or we don’t live at all. Either we venture or we vegetate.”

The Apostle Paul says, "Be careful for nothing.” An old maxim says, “Worry is faith in the negative . . . wasting today’s time to clutter up tomorrow’s opportunities with yesterday’s troubles.”

I am oft-reminded of an old TV interview Oprah had with a woman who was kidnapped by guerillas and held hostage in the deep jungles of Columbia for six-plus years (2002-2008), tortured and in solitary confinement where she had to ask permission just to use the toilet or brush her teeth.

The woman, who became a French politician, said one of the biggest lessons learned from the ordeal, where she says she was stretched to the absolute limits of loneliness, sorrow and deprivation of all that made life worth living, 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.”

 *****

In Luke 12: 4-5, Jesus Christ advised, “And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him."

Jordan explains, “It’s important to know who to fear and Christ says you’re to feel about things just the way God does. You’re going to fear God and think the way He thinks rather than fear the ‘Pharisees’ and think like they think.

“Jesus Christ reasons, ‘Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.’

“Christ in Luke 12:8: ‘Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God.’

“Jesus said not only did the Father not forget, but you know what’s going to happen if you acknowledge the Son? He’ll acknowledge you and He won’t forget you either.

 *****

In I Corinthians 2:9, Paul assures, “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.”

He tells the Philippians to “only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.” The “conversation” doesn’t have to do with speaking.

“In the middle of that word are the words ‘converse’ and ‘concourse.’ When you’re conversant with something, you’re intimate in the way it works. You know how it happens and how it’s accomplished, and you can become conversant with a book, or a subject, or with a computer, or whatever it is you want to be conversant with. You have a thorough knowledge of it where you’re able to live it and handle it and deal with it.

“Conversation is more than just being able to talk about it. It’s that you get right into it, and into its life, and let what’s at the basis of who you are, and the way you live, be as ‘becometh the gospel of Christ.’ Let your manner of life, your lifestyle, who you are be becoming, adorned, make look good…

“Let who you are down inside adorn the doctrine. It’s Titus 2 terminology. Or as Paul writes in Philippians:

[8] Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, [9] And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.

*****

When Paul advises to “be filled with the Spirit” in Ephesians 5, he’s not talking about getting more of the Spirit of God; it’s to be filled by His instrumentality.

“God the Holy Spirit is going to be used by the Father to put some things into you that ought to be there. It isn’t about putting more of the Spirit of God in you; it’s rather by the instrumentality of the Spirit of God--by the working of Holy Spirit --that some things are going to begin to be produced in your life.

“What it is is to have God’s Word—the Spirit of God never works apart from His Word. It’s to have God’s Spirit; take His Word and fill your heart, your understanding, and renew your mind with an understanding of what it is God’s doing.

“It’s an objective, measurable operation of the Holy Spirit. It’s something that can be measured by words on a page in the Bible and be identified in your life in specific ways.

“To be filled with anything is to be saturated by that thing to the point that it completely dominates and controls your life.

“In Luke 5, when it says the Pharisees were ‘filled with fear,’ that’s saying they were so astonished and afraid that fear just took control of them, and the emotion of fear just completely consumed them to the place they were incapable of doing anything because it controlled them.

“In Luke 6:11, they were ‘filled with madness,’ meaning they were completely controlled by their rage and it gripped them and carried them along and they couldn’t get shed of it.

“John 16:6 says ‘sorrow hath filled your heart.’ The emotion just came in and grabbed them and wrenched them to the place that they couldn’t get out from under the control of it.

“We could go on and on with passages like that. To ‘be filled with the Spirit’ simply means to be under the complete, total dominion and domination of the Holy Spirit.

“It has to do with surrender. Boy, we don’t like that word. It’s the total surrender of your life and your thinking to the control of the Holy Spirit so that He carries you along through life.

“Being filled with the Holy Spirit is you lose, you can’t, you give up and He does. Paul said, ‘I’m crucified.’ If your Christian life is going to be what God produces, it won’t be you.

“It requires the DEATH of selfishness and of self-will in your life. It isn’t my thinking, my way. It’s His way. We got this whole thing about ‘my way or the highway,’ but it isn’t that.

******

“I was in the bookstore specifically looking for books telling you how to be filled with the Holy Spirit and didn’t find one that had less than six steps to get there and the first two had to do with ‘confessing your sins’ and all that kind of bunk.

“How do you get there? To be filled with the Spirit is easy to understand; it means, ‘I surrender to His control. He controls me moment by moment, day by day.’ My life is to be lived in an attitude of complete, total surrender to the spirit of Almighty God.

“How in the world do I do that? It’s always fascinated me why there’s so much confusion about what it is that produces--what the means of producing this filling of the Spirit is.

“Like I said, it’s not simply a subjective feeling you get inside, that your emotions point you to. It’s an objective work of God the Holy Spirit in a non-experiential realm in your life, and you can measure it and identify it objectively.

*****

Just as Paul writes to be “filled with the Spirit,” he refers to “speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

This same advice is found in Colossians 3:16: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.”

“If you get the same results from being filled with the Spirit that you get from being filled with the Word of God, what does that tell you?!

“Listen, if you get exactly the same results, doesn’t that tell you that being filled with the Spirit is equal to being filled with the Word of God? Sure it does!

“Being ‘filled with the Spirit of God’ is equivalent to saying, ‘Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.’ It’s the Holy Spirit working THROUGH the Word of God to fill your life with the qualities of spiritual maturity. It’s taking the Word of Christ and letting it INFUSE every part of your being. It’s having your thinking and actions controlled by the Word of God.

*****

“One of my favorite verses is I Thessalonians 2:13. Paul says, ‘For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.’

“There’s a lot of things to get from that verse. It’s the Word of God that effectually works in people that believe. When you by faith take the Word of God and step out upon what God says, God the Holy Spirit takes His Word . . .

“God the Holy Spirit today works indirectly in your life through the instrumentality of the Word of God as you by faith rest upon it. I don’t know how to say that any clearer; if I did, I’d say it another way.

“The way God’s going to work in your life, it isn’t you sitting down and saying, ‘Lord, I want you to take away this problem out of my life,’ and God’s just going to zap you and it’s going to be gone. That isn’t how that happens.

“As you objectively take your thinking processes, your actions and your attitude and bring them under the control and authority of the Word of God . . . As you begin to think in your own heart and mind the way God says He thinks in His Word, that is God the Holy Spirit working in you both to will and to do His good pleasure.

“So rather than looking out there, we look in here. Rather than asking God to move and do out there, it’s His Word that WORKS and He’s in us, living His life out through our mortal bodies as we walk by faith in what He says in His Word.

“If something is effectual, that means it WORKS. It’s effective; it gets the job done. It’s not a misfire. It works effectually IN you. That’s where God’s working starts. It’s in you that believe! That’s the catalyst of it.

“Colossians 1:9 says, ‘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.’

“There’s that word again! Let the Word of Christ DWELL in you! Let it come and fill up your life and be at home in you and live there!

“What should be the result of you having a daily and a weekly intake of sound doctrine into your life? That you might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing.

“The first thing God is interested in you understanding about Jesus Christ is not His earthly life and ministry. That’s what religion wants you to know about.

“When you look back to Calvary and watch all the things that happen there, then the Lord speaks seven times. Now, you can only see into the heart of a person when the words come out of their mouth. You can’t watch the actions of a person and tell exactly what’s inside of them. They can be fooling you.

“But you listen to the words that come out a person’s mouth and the Lord says that’s where the Spirit’s revealed. That’s where your inner man comes out.”

(new article tomorrow) 

How to get recognized in heaven

In creating humans with a soul, God literally placed a bodily shape inside each one of us, meaning there’s a person inside of our body.

As Paul writes in II Corinthians 12: 2-3: “I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven. And I knew such a man, (whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth;)”

Jordan explains, “If this guy’s caught up in the third heaven and Paul says, ‘I can’t tell if he’s still in his body or not,’ then when he wasn’t in his body he must have still looked like he was.

“He said, ‘By looking at this guy I can’t tell whether he’s dead or alive. He’s up in the third heaven, though.’ So what’s up in the third heaven is his soul. But what did he look like? Paul didn’t say, ‘Well, he died but I don’t know who he is up there.’ When out of the body he looked just like he looked in the body.

“Some people wrongly have the idea that when we get our glorified body in heaven we’re all going to be carbon copies of one another, but Paul makes clear in I Corinthians 15: 35-38 that the resurrected body bears our distinct identities.

“Paul says, 'But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.’

“Because we’ll have our own personal body with its own personal appearance, we’re not just conscious of being in someone else’s presence, we can put a name to them and a face.

“Not only will we recognize and know those we’ve personally met in our lifetime, but we’ll be familiar with people we’ve never come face to face with.

“In Matthew 17, Peter instinctively knows who Moses and Elijah are even though there were no introductions given. While Peter had studied about the two men, and was taught things about them, he couldn’t have known what they looked like since they lived centuries before he did.

"While Luke 16:25 reveals we’ll have memory in heaven, remembering incidents and things that happened on earth, we’re not going to have any bad memories surrounding people we encounter in heaven.

“You’ll say, ‘Hey, there’s Brother Rick,’ and all you’ll remember is Jesus Christ in Brother Rick and not all that was ‘I, not Christ’; that will all be gone. 

“In our relationships with one another today, the key is to have Jesus Christ living in us so that when we meet up there we’ll have something to remember.

“Paul urges in Romans 6:11 to ‘yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead,’ meaning the resurrection life we’ll have for eternity is the life we are to have live in us right now.

“The key is to let our resurrection lives be in effect today so that when we get out there in our resurrection body, the life we then live will already be familiar to us.

“The verse is saying, ‘Don’t live in your old identity; live in your new one because the new one’s the one you’re going to take out there.’ Let everybody get to know you in your new identity NOW because that’s who they’re going to recognize out there.”

ALL IN the attitude

 Martin Luther, when called to stand trial at the Diet of Worms, gave his defense of “justification by faith,” saying, “Here I stand. I can do no other. I’m bound by my conscience. My conscience is bound by the Word of God.”

The human conscience works upon the data it's fed through thoughts, beliefs, allegiances, etc. Our conscience makes use of stored information or "memory" in responding to circumstances and situations.

“The conscience works on the inside as part of your soul," says Jordan. "It’s proactive; you don’t have to ask it to function. It’s mainly retrospective; it’s usually looking back at, ‘That’s what you did.'

“It encourages you to move to that which is right and away from what’s wrong. It convicts you of the wrong.

"The functioning in your inner man is of utmost importance but the difficulty with your conscience is it can be easily manipulated. Paul talks about a ‘defiled conscience.’ That is, you have a system of norms and standards but it runs on bad information.

“Paul talks about a weak conscience where it doesn’t have much information to go on and needs to be fortified.

"Not only can the conscious be misinformed, defiled, weak and evil (Paul refers to ‘an evil conscience’) but it can also be muted because it's been seared.

"It can be so consistently violated, where the wrong is affirmed as the right, that it does what Ephesians 4 talks about: ‘Who being past feeling have given themselves over to lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness.’

*****

“Basically, you have three aspects to you: the mentality of your soul, the physical actions you’re going to take, and the emotions. The way you were originally created by God to function was for your mind and your will to decide upon a course of action, and then for your emotions to respond to what’s in your mind, producing the action. That’s the natural way to function.

“Sin corrupted all that at the fall of Adam and Eve, but with the ‘new man’ Believer, instead of thinking, then feeling and taking action out of your feelings, God says, ‘Now take the way you think, and take the actions, by faith.’

“It’s not based on your feelings because your old sin nature corrupts the feelings and distorts the feeling, and if you’re going to take action out of your feelings, well, you know your feelings are too dumb to trust, don’t you?

“The way emotions work is they are always followers. They have no intelligence, no intellect. They can’t discern fact from fancy. They can’t tell the difference between the past, the present and the future. They have no ability to do that. All that’s done in your MIND. Your emotions respond to what’s in your mind.

“You can sit here this morning and think about something bad possibly happening in the future and become just as anxious about it right now as if it already happened. It’s an unreal thought.

“You don’t have to live in this think-feel-act circle. Romans 12:2 says to ‘be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’ You need to look at life through God’s eyes. God says your mind’s like a computer. It can be programmed one way or another.

*****

“The real culprit in life is not the particular circumstances or trials we face; it’s the attitude we take toward them. If you can understand how God created you, and how He made you to work and function, you’ve got a real leg up on things.

“While your spirit gives you God-consciousness, the soul gives you the capacity to be conscious of yourself. Your soul is the seat of your personality—of you as an individual. It is the part of you, by the way, that you never share with anyone else. The soul is the seat of who you are. The Greek term ego actually means ‘I am.’ The essence of who I am; that’s the soul.

“Now, your body gives you the capacity to communicate with the world about you. It’s the vehicle in which your spirit and soul reside and carry it around.

“In your spirit is your mind. It’s what gives us that capacity of knowing. Human spirits give us the ability to communicate with one another. That’s what the Bible calls your mind. In the mentality of your spirit, you have mental capacity; a memory center, vocabulary, frame of reference you get from all the things you know.

That same level in the soul is called your ‘heart.’ ‘In the heart’—that’s a function of your soul. The mentality of your soul is your heart. Proverbs 23:7 says, ‘As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.’

“When it comes up over to your heart, it’s no longer a way of thinking; it’s a way of believing. Romans 10 says, ‘With the heart man believes to righteousness.’ It’s when you recognize the difference between knowing something and believing it.

“You say to a kid, ‘You know better than that!’ It’s the difference between having the knowledge of a thing and having reached out by faith—by an act of your will—and having brought that into becoming a part of you and who you are.

“I know many things about a lot of different things that I don’t make the basis upon which I live. I know a lot about theology, much of which I don’t believe. I’m not going to make it a part of myself. It’s in my mind; it’s in my understanding. I grasp it, and I understand what’s being said, but I don’t base my life on it.

“You hear people say that heaven and hell can be 18 inches apart—you can have a head knowledge but not a heart knowledge. What they’re talking about is a difference between something in your spirit and something in your soul.

“The idea is I bring it out of the realm of what I know and I say, ‘This is what I’m going to believe; this is going to become the foundation upon which I take my life action,’ and then it becomes a part of my soul; part of the essence of my being.

“It’s the will that takes that information from in my head and puts it in my heart. And so it’s vitally important to understand the will is the decision you make to take what you know and make it a part—make it the foundation—upon which you’re going to live."

(new article tomorrow)

Subtlety to the simple

In a very literal way, the future generation, just as with Believers today, will need to be able to perceive and identify w-o-r-d-s of understanding from w-o-r-d-s of deception and foolishness.

One of the most-quoted lines from the ever-popular movie V for Vendetta that protest-types are so enthralled with is, "Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth."

When the Democrats talk about "purging" conservatives, you wonder, "Are they thinking in terms of the movie The Purge?"

God says to Job in Job 38, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel with words without knowledge?"

The message is, "Words without knowledge—words that don’t give understanding—darken your mind. They darken counsel. They darken the ability to know what to do."

When the Book of Proverbs says its aim is “to give subtlety to the simple,” the issue of subtlety is the issue of craftiness.

“You remember in Genesis 3:1 what it says about the serpent; that ‘he was more subtle than all the beasts of the field’?” says Jordan. “He was a crafty, cagey guy who was hard to catch and easy to be caught by.

“Jesus says to the apostles in the Great Commission, ‘I’m going to send you out as sheep among wolves; be wise as serpents and harmless as a dove.’ You need to have some subtlety. Some craftiness so you can avoid being caught by the snare of the Adversary.

“Now, why would simple people be in danger of being caught in craftiness? In Chapter 14:15, he says ‘the simple believe every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his going.’

"And in Proverbs, when it talks about the simple . . . even like we saw when Wisdom called the religious leaders simple, it’s because they just believed every word instead of checking and looking and finding and understanding. They just took their word for it and you can easily be deceived that way.”

*****

David gives four purposes the proverbs were collected together to accomplish. The first purpose, which is to know wisdom and instruction, is amplified in Chapter 1: 7-9. The second purpose, to perceive the words of understanding, is amplified in Chapter 1:10 to the end of chapter. The third purpose, to receive guidance in judgment and equity, can be found in Chapter 2. The fourth purpose is “to give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.”

“Beginning in Chapter 3, all the way down to the end of Chapter 9, or at least to the end of Chapter 7 (chapters 8 and 9 is a monologue where Wisdom speaks again), you have the focus on that fourth purpose,” says Jordan. “David was the most concerned . . . You know when you give your kids instruction, you got some things you want them to know about. You tell them to do this, this and this, and, ‘This one here, man, we need to talk about!’

“The most demanding one of these things—the one that David wanted Solomon to know the most about—is the one that God through David and Solomon wanted the ‘believing remnant’ in the last days to know the most about. Have subtlety. Have the ability to know and have knowledge and discretion.

*****

“And that’s the reason that all through Chapters 3-7 . . . that’s where that stuff about that ‘strange woman’ comes up. That strange woman, folks, in Revelation 17, is that religious system.

“That apostate religious system that starts back in Genesis and is introduced to the nation Israel through the tribe of Dan and is called Baal worship goes all down through the Bible and becomes the religion of the Antichrist. Part of the seduction is that thing in Revelation 2:14 and 20 where that woman Jezebel seduces the servants of God to commit fornication in the context of religion.

“These proverbs are designed to equip these people to be aware of the problems and these (four purposes) are going to give the ability not to be seduced. You and I today face that same religious system. It doesn’t make any difference what God’s doing, Satan has his religious system out there and it adapts; it doesn’t change what it’s doing, it just adapts its tactics.

“What the Proverbs were going to do for Israel, and what they will do for the believers in Israel, is give them the capacity to stay out of the trap and not step in the snare of the Adversary. That’s what Paul’s epistles do for us. (II Timothy 2:24)

*****

Among Proverbs’ fascinating aspects is how both wisdom and folly are personified as women. When wisdom speaks, for instance, it’s in three different formats.

“First she speaks in the city; in the streets to the leaders of the nation. Then she withdraws herself and talks in private. She builds herself a house and goes into her own chamber and talks to just the people who are willing to come into her house. And then she sends her emissaries out into the city to invite other people into the house.

“There’s going to come a time in Israel when Wisdom will cry in the streets and do what she does in the latter part of Chapter 1 (beginning in verse 20), which is to talk to the religious leaders of the nation and say, ‘Come and repent because the wrath of God’s coming, and if you don’t get right and hearken to me, the wrath of Almighty God is going to destroy you.’

“When they don’t hearken, Wisdom cries again (in Chapter 8), but this time she’s not out in the streets; she’s gone over and built her a house, and it’s from her house that she cries and invites people, ‘Psst! C’mon over here, I want to talk to you!’ and they go in the house.

“Of course, all of that is exactly what happens in the earthly ministry of Christ. He starts out publicly in the streets calling the nation to repentance. Then, in the middle part of His ministry, about Matthew 11 and 12, He withdraws, and just at the point in Matthew 12 when the Pharisees and Sadducees—the religious leaders—begin to develop a plot to kill Him, He withdraws Himself from them.

“In Matthew 16, Peter says, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus says, ‘You’re right; don’t tell anybody.’ Isn’t that strange? He goes up on the Mount of Transfiguration with Peter, James and John and is transfigured from them, and they see His kingdom glory and majesty and, as they’re coming down from the mountain, He says, ‘Now you guys have seen it, but don’t tell anybody.’

“Wait a minute! Before, they’d been going around saying, ‘Hey, He’s here! He’s here! Trust him!’ Now He’s saying, ‘Psst! Come over here guys. Let’s regroup.’

“When He does go outside to talk to people, He says, ‘From now on I’m only gonna talk in parables so you guys can’t understand it. People in my house over here, they can understand it.’ "

(new article tomorrow)

Fleshy tables of the heart

"It was 1936 and two friends serving together at a Sunday school conference in Alabama were at lunch, sharing what God was doing in their lives," writes Aaron Earls. "One, a missionary to Brazil home on furlough, told the other, a hymn writer leading the music for the conference, that a health issue would keep him from returning to the country he had grown to love. The news, received just days before, had broken his heart.

"The hymn writer asked, 'What will you do?' And through tears, the missionary, R.S. Jones, told the hymn writer, B.B. McKinney, 'Wherever He leads, I’ll go.' McKinney was so moved that he penned the classic hymn that afternoon and sang it that night after Jones had preached, recounts Terry C. Terry, a musicologist who wrote his doctoral dissertation about McKinney. Since then, this song has been sung at invitation times and crusades, revivals and worship services."

Katherine Hankey (1834-1911) was 32 years old when she wrote the hymn, 'I Love to Tell the Story,' out of her heart's deep desire to tell the simple gospel story wherever she was in life," explains writer Helen Salem Rizk. "First, it was in the Sunday school of Clapham, England, where she became a devoted, refined, consecrated woman. Then, it was in the heart of Africa, where she spent most of her life, giving the sales of all her writings to missions. Finally, it was in the hospitals of London, where she spent the last minutes of her life telling lonely patients of God's beautiful love.

"When Hankey wrote the song in 1866, she was doing more than expressing a feeling in her own being, she was projecting that same feeling into the minds of thousands of people through the years who would sing her song and receive the same challenge."

I love to tell the story, more wonderful it seems

Than all the golden fancies of all our golden dreams;

1. I love to tell the story, it did so much for me,
2. 
   And that is just the reason I tell it now to thee.
3. *****
4. “In II Corinthians 3, Paul talks about the Corinthians being the living epistles. He explains, ‘Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.’
5. 
   
   “It struck me one day, ‘If they were the epistles ministered by Paul, didn’t Paul write some epistles?’ In essence, he’s saying that you and I are really ‘Romans through Philemon.’ THAT’S what He writes in your heart!
   
   
   “Now, God doesn’t automatically write it in there. It’s what He writes in your heart as you take in that truth. It’s the intake."

Mayhem around the corner

In Luke 16, the rich man’s in torment calling on Abraham to send someone back to his brothers to warn them about not going to hell. Abraham then says to the rich man, "They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them." The rich man replies, "Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent." Abraham responds, "If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

Michigan preacher Tom Bruscha explains, "They had God’s Old Testament Scriptures, Moses and the prophets, and if they don’t believe what Moses and the prophets have said, they won’t believe if someone’s raised from the dead. Jesus Christ rose from the dead and they’re still rejecting His message.

"For 1,100 years God was putting together that Old Testament and they had Moses and the prophets. In Amos 8, God began to predict something. Israel’s in rebellion and He warns about judgment against the nation of Israel.

"In that judgment, He says, [11] Behold, the days come, saith the Lord GOD, that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD: [12] And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even to the east, they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the LORD, and shall not find it.

"God through the prophets said, ‘I’m going to quit prophesying.' The prophets are not going to receive any more message and there’s going to be a time when men are going to want to hear God’s Word and God’s going to be silent.

"These are the 400 years that followed the Book of Malachi before John the Baptist showed up. God was not speaking and there was a famine of the Word of God.

"During that silence before John the Baptist showed up, that’s when the Catholic Church had their apocryphal books, most of them written during that time.

"If it’s during a time when God’s silent then those books are not inspired by God and, in fact, when you read those books, they don’t claim to be inspired by God. They’re not part of the Scriptures.

"In fact, in those apocryphal books written during that 400-year span of God’s silence, is where things like 'purgatory' shows up. Things like 'indulgences,' where people could pay money and have their sins forgiven.

"They come out of those books of scripture that are not inspired of God. During that time God had His scribes taking and collecting the Old Testament together and they did not include the Apocrypha.

"The Jews, even though it’s their history, did not recognize the books as being the Word of God. They understood the silent years of God until John the Baptist. Even to this day, Jews do not believe the New Testament but their Old Testament is identical to our Old Testament. They number the books different but all the books are the same."

So spake that a great multitude believed

"Starting in Hebrews, the kingdom writers of the tribulation epistles placed emphasis on their readers  reading the book," explains Michigan preacher Tom Bruscha. "They're going to be left with a Bible in the last days.

"In Exodus when God is telling Moses to write a Book that's the beginning of the Bible. Moses began to write God's Word about 1,500 B.C. That's actually 2,500 years after Creation. That's 2,500 years after Adam and Eve, so that's a long period of time.

"The first 2,500 years man had God's Word passed down verbally. Noah's Flood came about 1,500 years after Creation. By the way, I'm talking in generalities, plus or minus 60 years, just to make things simple.

"Prior to the Flood, man lived up to 969 years. Genesis 5:5 tells us Adam lived 939 years. That's 570 years before the Flood. You find out Noah's father, Lamech, knew Adam for 56 years. He knew Adam's son, Seth, for 168 years. Noah was born just 14 years after Seth's death.

"What does that mean? Verbal communication, passing down God's Word, was first, second and, at worst, third-hand revelation. These men, because man lived so long, were passing down the Word of God.

"For those first 2,500 years there was also another revelation they had. Psalm 19: [1] The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

[2] Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge.
[3] There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.
[4] Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath he set a tabernacle for the sun

"They're learning something as they look up in the clouds at night. There is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. They're line--you know, someone says, 'That's a good line,' meaning a statement is being made. Their line has gone out through all the earth.

"They were able at that time to look up and read God's Word in the stars. The next 500 years after the Flood is when the Gentiles changed the truth of God into a lie and the message that was in those stars was then lost. That revelation early man had, they changed that into a lie. Romans 1 declares that for us. The 'they' in the passage is early man.

"Verse 25 says, [25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

"Romans 3 begins, [1] What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? [2] Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.

"God took His truth that man's perverted, raised up Abraham and then, in that next 500 years, the oracles of God were given to the nation of Israel. By the time you come to Moses, God is now telling Moses to write these things in a book. Over the next 1,100 years God gave man the Old Testament."

*****

I Thessalonians 2:13 says, [13] For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.

"You see how important it is to have that attitude about the Book you're holding in your hand?" says Jordan. "By the way, that is a great verse about where they got God's Word. When you hear the Scripture, there's the idea of a 'received text.'

"That term didn't just come out of the air. The Elzevir brothers didn't just invent that term in 1624 when they published their Greek text. That was a term that came out of the Scripture. That was a Bible term about people's attitudes about the Word they had.

"They didn't receive it as the word of men; they knew it was God's Word. When you think about how God's Word was passed down to you, you're not thinking about it being preserved through history the way men preserved Shakespeare or Homer.

*****

"As a young preacher there's a verse that meant an awful lot to me and has all through the years. I worked in the Mobile Rescue Mission back in the mid- to late-'60s and that's where I started preaching.

"The first five years I preached was in the mission and I was privileged to preach anywhere from 10-15 times a week. When I was at Mobile College in the ministerial association with all the preacher boys (60-70 guys studying for the ministry) some of these guys were just dying to preach and I'd say, 'Well, come on down to the mission and I'll let you preach anytime,' but I couldn't get them to come. They wanted to go preach in a church.

"I was preaching so often that it was not a startling thing for me to preach. But one of the things  you'd do in the mission is preach the gospel to lost people primarily, and I noticed that Brother Reynolds, when he would preach, he'd preach maybe only 15-17 minutes. He was ill and not in good health and he had to sit on a stool and hold onto the pulpit. But he would preach and this verse was the verse that described his preaching to me:

Acts 14:1 says, [1] And it came to pass in Iconium, that they went both together into the synagogue of the Jews, and so spake, that a great multitude both of the Jews and also of the Greeks believed.

"When it says they 'so spake,' Paul says in I Corinthians 2, '[1] And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.

"Paul's saying, 'I didn't come in with good words and fair speeches. I didn't use my education.' Paul was a advanced-degree rabbinical scholar. He knew all the 75-cent words. He said, 'I didn't come with all the big talk. I didn't come blowing smoke down your pipe. I came doing one thing, determined to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I just wanted to preach the gospel of the grace of God to you and nothing else mattered.'

"I used to watch people come to the mission and I'd watch Brother Reynolds get up in front of a group of 50-60 men, most of whom we'd never seen before, and in his physical infirmity, he'd preach to them and see 8, 10, 12 guys trust Christ.

"When I say that, I don't just mean walk an aisle and shake a preacher's hand; I'm talking about men that I would deal with and sit down and talk to them about what they understood and what they were doing and see them really, genuinely get saved.

"Then I'd watch in the evening meetings after Brother Reynolds had gone home and we'd have churches come, and they'd use all the techniques and all the psychology and all the other stuff, and maybe one or two would respond out of a group of 100.

"I used to ask myself, 'How can Brother Reynolds preach to the smaller group of 50-60 guys just there for lunch and see a harvest, and these other guys preach and have all the bells and whistles and entertainment, and just see a little handful?'

"That verse right there in Acts 14, I'd say, 'You know, I got to figure that one out,' and I studied Brother Reynolds for all those years and got to know him, and what I wanted to learn from him was, 'They so spake that a great multitude believed . . . '

"You know what I discovered? When Brother Reynolds would preach, he'd have something of a little outline. One of my favorite messages that he would preach, one that I used to preach on the street, had three points. No. 1 was 'heaven's greatest testimony': 'God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.' No. 2 was 'the first greatest tragedy': They rejected Him and took Him out and crucified Him. No. 3 was 'man's greatest trust': 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.'

"Now, that's pretty much the gospel, isn't it? And in between there, Brother Reynolds would quote about 15-20 verses from memory; he'd just look at you and give you the verses one right after another.

"A lot of times you'll hear me preach and I'll string verses together. I learned to do that watching Clyde Reynolds do that.

"I learned that when he preached, all he was using was the power of God's Word and it would penetrate dark, hardened hearts in a way that all the other stuff never did.

*****

"Paul 'so spake.' He took that Word and made it the issue. And when he praised the Thessalonians, he said, 'Pray that my ministry of preaching the Word wouldn't be the object of all this interference and that the Word of God may be glorified; that we could so speak that a great multitude would believe.'

"The hindrance to the free course of the Word was going to come from unreasonable and wicked men. He was in Acts 18 when he wrote that from Corinth; he'd already had some experiences the Thessalonians knew about.

"When Paul goes into Thessalonica and some people get saved, Acts 17:5 says, [5] But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.

"You see that? It says they 'moved with envy.' There's a spiritual, sinful, wicked motivation. It says they 'took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort.' They reached out to a bunch of characters of ill-repute; they literally reached into the criminal underworld and gathered a company and 'set all the city on an uproar . . .'

"When he says they were unreasonable, that means they weren't people you could sit down and reason with. They were not people who were going to think the thing through with you. They were wicked. Their unreasonableness came from their wickedness.

"Through the years that verse has proved itself over and over, because you'll discover that people are out to resist the ministry and it will make no sense to you. When you find people being unreasonable, you'll find there's something sticking them and it's going to be some sin. The wickedness, the envy, causes the unreasonableness.

"When God tells Israel, 'Come now, let us reason together,' Paul says '[1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

"There is a reasonableness to God's grace, to the gospel, and when people are unreasonable, what you have to learn is that reasoning with their unreasonableness isn't going to get you anywhere. That's why arguing the science, or the philosophy, to people--arguing on their terms of unreasonableness never gets you anywhere. There's a wickedness in the heart that has concluded . . .

*****

"When I graduated from high school I was working at the mission and I actually wanted to go to Moody Bible Institute. Brother Reynolds was a graduate of Moody, the secretary of the mission was a graduate of Moody.

"I would have come to Chicago and gone to Moody in the late '60s had I been able to but my dad was ill. He had a rare blood disease and I couldn't go up there and leave him in the sick condition he was in with only my mother to tend to him, and so I didn't have the opportunity to leave.

"So I went to Mobile College (now Mobile University), which was only 3-4 years old (Southern Baptists started it) and it was a good school. Brother Reynolds sat me down after I was accepted and said, 'I want to give you two verses for you not to forget while you're at college.'

"They were Proverbs 18:1-2: [1] Through desire a man, having separated himself, seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.
[2] A fool hath no delight in understanding, but that his heart may discover itself.

"It's through desire, so that you might discover what you want. A man 'having separated himself,' means,  'I'm going to get a higher quality of life. I'm going to be one of the elite.'

"He 'seeketh and intermeddleth with all wisdom.' Is that a good thing to do? All wisdom? A fool does that. You remember that verse in Romans 1: 'Professing themselves to be wise they became fools.'

" 'The fool hath said in his heart there's no God.' A fool, someone who professes himself to be wise, hath no delight in understanding but that his heart may discover itself. He studies and tries to get wisdom and understanding for one thing; he wants an alibi to do what he wants to do.

"I remember reading that verse and thinking, 'Wow! I got to be careful.' Can I tell you that people don't reject God's Word out of intellectual honesty. They reject God's Word out of moral corruption. They become fools because they think they should be God.

"Paul says, 'I want you to pray for me because the people I'm dealing with out here are unreasonable and wicked.' And then he says, 'For all men have not faith.' Duh! That's sort of like a sarcastic backhand.

"You read the commentaries and they do all kind of stuff about that phrase. You know, when you just read that, that's just plain sarcasm. Paul says, 'They're unreasonable and wicked because they don't have any faith!' "

(new article tomorrow)

What to pick up when it's lights out (and the grid goes down?!)

"The 'sword of the Spirit' is the Book and the Book has been God's Book all through and we're people of the Book. That's who God's people have always been is people of the Book--not religion.

"Here's how the Book ends. Revelation 22: [18] For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:

[19] And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.

"The last Book He puts in the Book says don't add anything, don't take anything away. People say, 'Well, that's just the Book of Revelation.' I got that, but people all the way along, when they looked at the Book they knew it had a bunch of parts to it, but the parts were part of the Book and what you say about one part of the Book you're saying about ALL of the Book.

"When He ends with the Book He says, 'Don't mess with it. There's nothing else to be added.' All these people going around saying God's speaking to them. Paula White (Donald Trump's 'spiritual adviser') talking about God talking to her. Beth Moore talking about God talking to her. Kenny Copeland, Creflo Dollar, all those types.

"I want you to see why Paul would say the 'sword of the Spirit' is the Word of God. If you're going to get in battle with the forces of the Adversary, you need to have that Book.

"In II Chronicles 17 is a great picture of the power of the working of the Word of God in the life of Israel and in the life of any Believer:

[3] And the LORD was with Jehoshaphat, because he walked in the first ways of his father David, and sought not unto Baalim;

[4] But sought to the LORD God of his father, and walked in his commandments, and not after the doings of Israel.
[5] Therefore the LORD stablished the kingdom in his hand; and all Judah brought to Jehoshaphat presents; and he had riches and honour in abundance.
[6] And his heart was lifted up in the ways of the LORD: moreover he took away the high places and groves out of Judah.

"Jehoshaphat was a good king. He walked in the first ways of his father David. David was a man after God's own heart. He didn't get involved with Baal worship. 

"He got rid of all the paganism, all the idolatry and false doctrine. He's got five princes, nine Levites and two priests who go out and establish Bible teaching centers all over Judah.

"Verse 9 says, [9] And they taught in Judah, and had the book of the law of the LORD with them, and went about throughout all the cities of Judah, and taught the people.

[10] And the fear of the LORD fell upon all the kingdoms of the lands that were round about Judah, so that they made no war against Jehoshaphat.
[11] Also some of the Philistines brought Jehoshaphat presents, and tribute silver; and the Arabians brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven thousand and seven hundred he goats.

[12] And Jehoshaphat waxed great exceedingly; and he built in Judah castles, and cities of store.

"Jehoshaphat literally filled Judah with centers to teach the Book of the Law of Moses. They're teaching God's Word and the impact of it reached out even to the Gentile world.

"If you read down through verses 14-19, you see over a million soldiers were brought together. The Word of God made an army in Israel that was strong and equipped for war because of the Word of God.

"Now you notice in verse 10 it says 'the fear of the Lord fell upon the king.' The psalm says, 'The entrance of thy word is light.' It pushes out darkness.

"Do you understand why America has been the nation it's been to the world? It isn't because of our capitalistic system or representative democracy. It's because the Word of God has gone out from our country. Now the Word of God has been lost. The light's gone out."

(new article tomorrow)

Just a few more weary days and then . . .

A great old hymn from 1873, "Christ is All," includes the stanzas,

1. I saw a martyr at the stake,
   The flames could not his courage shake,
   Nor death his soul appall;
   I asked him whence his strength was giv’n;
   He looked triumphantly to Heav’n,
   And answered, “Christ is all.”
2. I saw the gospel herald go
   To Africa’s sand and Greenland’s snow,
   To save from Satan’s thrall;
   Nor home nor life he counted dear,
   Midst wants and perils owned no fear,
   He felt that “Christ is all.”
3. I dreamed that hoary time had fled,
   And earth and sea gave up their dead,
   A fire dissolved this ball;
   I saw the church’s ransomed throng,
   I heard the burden of their song,
   ’Twas “Christ is all in all.”
4. Psalm 90 begins, [1] LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.

[2] Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
[3] Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
[4] For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
[5] Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
[6] In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.

Jordan explains, " 'Everlasting to everlasting.' What's that? Like a weaver's beam. It's like going to sleep, waking up, a third of my day's gone. It's just ffttoo, gone. It's like a flood coming, sweeping it away. Before I can get up, I'm gone.

"It's like grass growing and then, boom, the heat comes and kills it--in a day! That's a strange thing in that illustration. He doesn't even give the grass time to grow in the field for a month. It just sprouts out and then the heat comes and whoosh. He's talking about the brevity of your life.

"Verse 10: [10] The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

"That's where the song 'I'll Fly Away' came from. It's talking about death. That's why we change the words in that song from, 'When I die,' to 'When I rise,' because we don't fly away at death. We think of that song as talking about the resurrection at the Rapture and that doesn't take place at death; that takes place when the Lord comes.

"Verse 12: [12] So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

"We need to count one by one and live every day like it's the last day. That's in essence the issue here. Make everything out of every day you can.

"Verse 13: [13] Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

"That's that tribulation cry found in Revelation 6: [9] And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held:

[10] And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?

"Go through all the Book of the Psalms, and if you look for that phrase 'how long' and find the text where it's found, you'll be finding a tribulation Jew, a member of the little flock crying out for the Lord for deliverance from the tribulation into the kingdom.

"When he says, 'Return, O Lord,' here's the faithful remnant looking for the Lord to come and deliver them. 

" 'How long is it going to go on? Let it repent thee concerning thy servants.' I love that. In Jeremiah 18 they go to the potter's house and the Lord tells Jerry, 'Look at what's going on with the potter. He makes the vessel in his hand and it's marred and he pushes the clay back down and makes another vessel.'

"It's made, it gets marred and then he mends it. He takes that same lump of clay and reshapes it into another vessel. He says, 'That's the way I treat you; the way I treat Israel. If you obey my voice, I'll bless you. If you don't, well then I'll reshape you into a vessel of destruction. But if you come back, I'll reshape you into a vessel of mercy.' That's the illustration Paul uses in Romans 9.

"So when it says, 'Let it repent thee,' in other words, 'You planned wrath but we're going to believe. So change your mind about the destruction. We're returning.'

"Here's what they're crying for; they're asking the Lord to do what He intended to do. Jesus taught His disciples to pray, 'Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.'

"That's in essence what these guys are praying: 'You've got a plan for the earth; bring it on! We want to be a part of it!'

" 'Satisfy us early with thy mercy.' Don't wait! Come on, we're looking for you to come.' "

*****

Here's a related post:

"With the suffering of our day, we understand why Paul calls it the present peril because, in the dispensation of grace, God's not dealing with us like He dealt with Israel," says Jordan.

"Because God's not intervening in our lives to turn away the difficult situations, that's why Paul writes in Romans 8:35-36, 'Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
[36] As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

" The word as is an illustration; for is a fulfillment. Paul is quoting Psalm 44: [22] Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
[23] Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
[24] Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
[25] For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.

"That's the 'believing remnant of Israel' in the day of Jacob's trouble and they are petitioning the Lord. How long are they killed? All the day long. There's no relief. It's just getting worse and worse; it doesn't stop. Paul says when you experience these things in Romans 8:35, you come to the conclusion that there's no intervention; it's just rolling over us.

"In Philippians 1, Paul says your adversaries see that and they seek to terrorize you. Terrorize is an intensified form of fear. These things don't go away through the common lot we have.

"The tribulation, which means trouble, is in three categories as I see them. There's personal things, economic things and social things.

"In John 16:33 Jesus says, 'In the world you'll have tribulation.' Paul says in Acts 14:22, [22] Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

"He's talking about our lives, not the prophetic 70th Week of Daniel. You're going to have that roller coaster of experiences in life that produces hardships, death, divorce, desertion, depression, disease, betrayal, whatever it is.

"All of that produces heartache, fear. It causes you to focus on what's going on here, right now with me, inward feelings of inadequacies, failures, turmoil. It's a roller coaster of emotions and it's designed to say, 'Life's unfair and God doesn't care,' and separate you from this great love of Christ.

"Ephesians 5 says, [25] Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. How did He love the church? He gave Himself for it based on how much He loved. He loved the church according to the will of His Father. Jesus Christ valued, esteemed, cherished, delighted in the will of His Father so much that He was willing to be obedient to the Cross. 

"Trouble gets you to focus on yourself and forget all that. Distress means to be pressed into a tight place; the pressure that comes to prevent you from applying the life you have in Christ. It's the pressure to go and hide and it creates an unsettled mind and thinking process, feelings of helplessness, panic. The opposite of calm and assured, confident and hopeful.

"You need to understand that the fear and the intimidation that builds up in you is a satanic attack; a tactic to separate you away from the fact that your real identity is in who you are in Christ.

******

"When Paul lists famine and nakedness, famine is the lack of food and nakedness is the idea of, 'We've been stripped away of all the things that make us attractive in the world.' That's the opposite of I Timothy: [7] For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
[8] And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.

"Perils refers to dangerous times where you're in danger of losing everything and everyone. That's those immediate, personal, life-threatening things that come in society.

"Listen, you and I have lived in a culture that's been very friendly toward things that you like in life; lifestyles that you like. It's not that way anymore.

"For many decades now Americans have been talking about the culture wars. What you're seeing in the culture right now is the last gasp of watching the old ship sink.

"Consequently, the perils are in your lifetime, actually right now . . . If you go out and broadcast Romans 1 you'll be in danger, not just of social isolation but of social assault.

"There's certain things you can say and can't say without being assaulted, and the things you're not going to be able to say are things about the gospel; basic fundamental things that you and I think are normal. Things about the institutions that God established to give structure to humanity.

"Twenty-five years ago you never would have thought about having to redefine marriage, but now in the culture you can't define marriage biblically and not be in peril. What is that? That's an intimidation, a dart designed to singe you, put the heat on you, make you say, 'I'll give up; I'll be quiet.'

"The sword is government. They don't bear the sword in vain. You're going to watch in the world we live in governmental persecution, all those things.

"The American experiment with liberty is the odd man in the world. Our world has been the fruit of the working out of the spiritual impact of the Protestant Reformation, but that impact has been undercut and is imploding now. We're going to go back to being like 90% of the rest of the world where governments run things, control things.

"Satan uses the world system to fire those darts at you because they are personally designed to impact in your life to separate you away from the love of Christ; from the ability to value and esteem what He's done and how He functions.

"What gets the little flock through the tribulation is they understand God is doing something in purging His nation, and you and I can look at what's going on today and say, 'For thy sake we suffer this.' Why? Because God's chosen to extend the dispensation of grace one more day.

"When you walk in light you know where to put your foot next. The Psalm says 'thy Word is a lamp under my feet and a light.' I know where to put my foot next and the light shines onto the destination I'm going.

"Now, between the destination and my feet there might be darkness, but I'm not worried; I know where I'm going and I know where to put my next foot because the lamp tells me. It shows me the footage."

(new article tomorrow)