1 of 2 most misunderstood verses in John

John 1 gives you four consecutive days in the life and ministry of John the Baptist. If you start in verse 19 you have the first day. The second day starts in verse 29. Verse 35 starts the third day, then verse 43 is "the day following," which is the fourth day.

“Because he says ‘the next day’ and ‘the day following’ and ‘the next day,’ it’s pretty obvious it’s not just four isolated days; it’s four days in succession," says Richard Jordan. "Notice each one of the first three sections starts with a reference to John and the last one talks about what’s going to happen to some of Jesus’ disciples.

“Chapter 2 starts with: [1] And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there:
[2] And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage.

“If you have four days in chapter one and three in chapter 2, that makes seven. When you think of seven days immediately you go back to Genesis 1 with the creation and you also are reminded of a pattern in prophecy of the seventh day.

“The marriage in Cana of Galilee in the seventh day is a clear picture in the prophetic program of the Millennium. It’s of that seventh day of Sabbath rest in which Israel is married to the land; the land becomes Beulah Land again and they’re married to it and they have that period of rest and union with the Lord and it’s a picture of the kingdom.

“You’ll see this same kind of pattern in chapter 4 when Christ’s dealing with the Samaritans. You’ll see it again in chapter 11 with Lazarus. What John’s doing is laying out this full week of ministry, not of the Mosaic covenant, but of the introduction of the Messianic Covenant, the New Covenant, and the parallel it has with the prophetic program going all the way back to Genesis 1.

“John 1:29 is probably one of the two or three most familiar verses in the Book of John. I would say it’s probably one of the two most misunderstood verses in the Book of John. It’s used in ways that are generally completely devoid of interest in the context of the verse.

“If you’ll get over that a little bit and let the verse be what it is, it turns into something that’s really fascinating.

“John says, [29] The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
[30] This is he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which is preferred before me: for he was before me.

“If you look down at verse 36: [36] And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!

“For John, that title ‘the Lamb of God’ is very important and John’s testimony when he saw the Lord approach was, ‘Behold the Lamb of God.’

“You know how that verse is used? That verse is most often used as a gospel verse to tell you that’s who the Lord Jesus Christ is; He’s the Lamb who died at Calvary for your sins and put them away by the sacrifice of Himself.

"The problem with that is that John the Baptist didn’t know that. The people at the time John said that didn’t have an understanding of the crosswork as we do now.

"You'll see this in Luke 18: [31] Then he took unto him the twelve, and said unto them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all things that are written by the prophets concerning the Son of man shall be accomplished.

[32] For he shall be delivered unto the Gentiles, and shall be mocked, and spitefully entreated, and spitted on:
[33] And they shall scourge him, and put him to death: and the third day he shall rise again.
[34] And they understood none of these things: and this saying was hid from them, neither knew they the things which were spoken.

"In other words, when the Lord Jesus Christ began to tell the apostles, 'The reason I'm going to Jerusalem is to solidify my rejection, to be crucified and to rise again from the dead,' they didn't know that. Now they'd been preaching the gospel of the kingdom for three years up to this point. They'd been out ministering that gospel.

"In fact, in this text it doesn't say He's going to die for their sins; it just says He's going to die and be resurrected. There isn't even an explanation in Luke 18 about why He's going to die and yet they still don't even understand that basic information."

(another post later)

What Jesus really looked like

 From last night’s Q & A study at my church:

“Song of Solomon is a conversation back and forth between a groom and his bride and you understand the book as a picture between Christ and the Believing remnant in Israel and the seduction policy of the Adversary to try to draw her away from him. The key for her in waiting for her departed but soon-returning groom is to keep her mind fixed on him.

Isaiah 26: 3-4: [3] Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.
[4] Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:

“That’s saying, ‘Keep your mind on Him and you can endure all things.’

“This is the last one of the books of the wisdom literature. As you study Job, you see there’s the Believing remnant suffering under the satanic captivity that Israel will be under (42 chapters for the 42 months and the half of the Trib).

“Then you have the Psalms, which is a mandate for how the Davidic Covenant is going to be put into place. Proverbs is the wisdom that the Believing remnant is going to need to have to resist the woman there who’s the harlot, Mystery Babylon the Great.

“When you get to Ecclesiastes, you have Solomon, who once was a faithful guy, but now he’s turned into a worldly man, out seeking answers, not in God’s Word, but in the things of the world. You see there the things the Believing remnant are going to have to resist.

“There’s a place in II Chronicles 9:13 where Solomon transitions from being the son of David to literally being a picture of the Antichrist.

“When you get to Song of Solomon, you’re seeing Solomon seek to seduce the groom’s bride and carry her away. So there’s this picture of the seduction that’s going to be aimed at the nation Israel; that Believing remnant in the tribulation.

“In chapter 4, her groom describes her and in chapter 5, she describes him. Now the description is the only physical description in your Bible that would be of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Verse 5:9: [9] What is thy beloved more than another beloved, O thou fairest among women? what is thy beloved more than another beloved, that thou dost so charge us?

“So they’re challenging her, ‘Who is your guy and what makes him so important to you?’ What you’re going to read here is a description that she’s giving and sort of prophetically of who she sees in the Messiah; who she sees in Christ.

“Verse 10: [10] My beloved is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand.

“ ‘He’s the fairest among 10,000 to my soul,’ we sing in that old song. When it talks about him being ‘the rose of Sharon,’ that comes out of Song of Solomon. ‘He’s the top; He’s the best.’

“When it says he’s ‘white and ruddy,’ if you look at chapter 1 . . .  you know, in this day and age when you say someone’s white you’re almost saying there’s something wrong with them—at least with the current political structure.

“By the way, for me to be white I’d have to be dead. But when you’re Caucasian, really your skin is more pinkish-brown. When it says he’s ruddy, the ruddy part is reddish-brown. That’s the color that Adam was.

“Adam was not a Caucasian. Adam was not a person with completely black skin; he was made out of the dirt and he’s like reddish dirt. He was a person of color.

“In verses 1:5-6, the bride says ‘[5] I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
[6] Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.

“What she’s talking about is, ‘I’ve gotten sunburned and my skin is colored.’ When it says he’s white, it’s in contrast to her color, but the issue of the coloring is the ruddy.

“If you see pictures of the famous drawings of Christ, He’s got long reddish-blond hair, blue eyes. He looks like a strawberry-blond Irishman. He wasn’t that and He wasn’t the Italian rendition of what the painters did. That’s all Catholic mythology. He was a Jew; He had a Jewish complexion.

“Verse 11: [11] His head is as the most fine gold, his locks are bushy, and black as a raven.

“So He had black hair and it wasn’t long and stringy. One of the ways you know that is if you see sculptures, busts, or paintings of 1^st Century people--Romans. They don’t have long hair. The way people looked and dressed in the 1^st Century is not the way these effeminate-looking Jesus’ in the pictures are.

“One of the ways you know that, for example, is when Judas is going to betray Him. Judas couldn’t just say, ‘He’s the long haired straggly-looking guy in the crowd.’ He looked ordinary; He looked like anybody else. So it wasn’t His hair that stood Him out, which is artists trying to make Him look like an ancient hippy. But He had a full head of hair that was black and bushy.

“Verse 5:12: [12] His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk, and fitly set.

“Have you ever seen a dove’s eyes? Their color is gray. But when a dove looks at you, he looks at you like he’s going to go right through you. They have this piercing stare. And they’re washed—they’re clear, they’re sparkling and they’re fitly set. In other words, they were properly set in His head. His figure of looking at it was balanced.

“Verse 13: [13] His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers: his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh.

“You see the figures of speech that she’s using? When you get that kind of description, that’s the thing about, ‘The Lord will keep in perfect peace those whose mind is stayed on Him.’

“She’s examining him; she’s looking at him closely. She’s captivated by him. She says, ‘His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers.’ He says, ‘When I look at your cheeks it’s just like looking at a beautiful flower garden.’

“When it says ‘his lips like lilies, dropping sweet smelling myrrh,’ that means his lips are moist; not dried out and parched.

“Verse 14: [14] His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.

“That’s a green color. When you wear a ring, especially a gold ring, it’s like a signet; it’s a sign of love. It’s a sign of ownership. You remember the prodigal son when he came home? The father put the ring. ‘This is my son.’ So he has that kind of bearing about him.

‘It says ‘his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires.’ Every time I read that I think, ‘He’s got the original six-pack abs.’ Ivory, strong in strength in His core.

“Verse 15: [15] His legs are as pillars of marble, set upon sockets of fine gold: his countenance is as Lebanon, excellent as the cedars.

“His legs are as marble. Marble is stronger than granite. His legs can hold him up and he can stand there on them without falling down; without giving way.

“ ‘Set upon sockets of fine gold’ is talking about the ankles, the feet. When it says ‘his countenance is as Lebanon,’ the idea there is the cedars of Lebanon—they’re strong and they’re straight and the way he looks at you, the way he appears, is someone with strength and character and he’s able to look straight on.

“Verse 16: [16] His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely. This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

“That’s more talking about what comes out of his mouth. You know all the verses about the Word of God being like honey and the sweetness of it. John says, ‘I ate it and it was in my mouth sweet as honey.’

“And then she says ‘This is my beloved, and this is my friend. This is the one in whom I find all my delight and he’s my friend; he sticks with me and he’s not going to forsake me,’ and in this context he might be gone but he’s coming back and, ‘I’ve just got eyes for him; he’s the altogether lovely.’

“Now there’s a passage that kind of calls all of that into question if you go to Isaiah 53: [1] Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?
[2] For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

“When they looked at Christ in His humanity, the Word became flesh, He was not some supernatural standout; He was a normal human being. When Judas had to identify Him, He had to go and kiss Him. He had to single Him out of a crowd and say, ‘This is Him and I’ll give you the signal.’ And he didn’t just say, ‘You’ll see Him when you see Him and He’ll have hair walking around like some fairy-looking guy.’ He was a normal-looking person, nothing special, nothing particular about him.

“Well, Song of Solomon is not describing what men see in Him. Song of Solomon is not describing what anybody sees; it’s what the Believer, what this woman who is, I mean, he’s her altogether lovely; he’s the one who her heart is fixed on. When she looks at him she sees something different.

“So what you’re reading in Song of Solomon is a description of his love; of the Believer looking at him. ‘He’s my beloved, my friend.’

“But you can see the difference of what He was like as opposed to what religion makes Him out. So if you can jettison all the pictures in children’s bibles and listen, these are pictures by the master painters of the world, but they’re infected with a bunch of religious nonsense and they paint their concepts of that.

“You see very few pictures of Christ—it’s actually not necessary to see pictures of Him, but if you do, very seldom do you see any that are actually depicting Him as a Jewish man. He worked for two decades in a carpenter shop. He didn’t have hands that were made to handle laced panties. He was a man; He worked and worked with His father the carpenter and He had working hands and a working man’s body.”

God: 'Walk in own empty, worthless ways'

 From today’s sermon at my church:

“When God separated Israel away He left the Gentiles to themselves. Why did He do that and, more importantly, what is the condition of the Gentiles when this happened? If you’ve ever wondered how to think about what’s going on in the world out there today . . .

“There’s a philosophy of the world called critical theory that morphs into social justice. You don’t want social justice, you want biblical justice.

"In Paul’s words, biblical justice is Colossians 4:1: [1] Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven.

“In Acts 14 Paul’s talking to some pagans. They called him Mercury and Jupiter; they tried to make sacrifices to him. He asks, ‘Why are you making sacrifices to me?!”

[15] And saying, Sirs, why do ye these things? We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein:
[16] Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways.
[17] Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.

“Vanity means these empty, worthless ideas. You remember Ecclesiastes? ‘Vanity, vanity, all is vanity, sayeth the preacher.’ Solomon says, ‘You come, you live, you die. You come, you live, you die, and it just turns out to be nothing.’

“There was a time in history when the nations said, ‘We don’t want God,’ so God said, ‘I will let you go in your own way. Dream up your own thinking and I’ll take my nation out and show you what it would be like to have me as your God.’

“In time past there was a point where God allowed the nations to walk in their own ways; develop their own thinking processes.

“Paul’s at Mars Hill in Acts 17 talking to the intelligentsia, the elitists of his day. He says: [30] And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent: [31] Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

“Now things are different than they were back there. He says, ‘Where you guys were is you were ignorant.’ I love what he says there because it’s just such a funny thing. You’ve got the intelligentsia of the educated world. People think the Greeks are the greatest minds, the greatest scholars.

“Our president, the first time he ran for president, had to quit because he plagiarized some British guy’s speech. He’s done that all his career, but he’s not the worst one. These Greek philosophers were.

“You know where they got it all? From the wisdom literature in the Old Testament. It was on the table for hundreds of years before they ever said anything. Every Greek philosopher that you can list, you can find his philosophy in the Book of Ecclesiastes, but who studies that?

“Acts 17: [16] Now while Paul waited for them at Athens, his spirit was stirred in him, when he saw the city wholly given to idolatry.

[17] Therefore disputed he in the synagogue with the Jews, and with the devout persons, and in the market daily with them that met with him.
[18] Then certain philosophers of the Epicureans, and of the Stoicks, encountered him. And some said, What will this babbler say? other some, He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods: because he preached unto them Jesus, and the resurrection.
[19] And they took him, and brought him unto Areopagus, saying, May we know what this new doctrine, whereof thou speakest, is?
[20] For thou bringest certain strange things to our ears: we would know therefore what these things mean.
[21] (For all the Athenians and strangers which were there spent their time in nothing else, but either to tell, or to hear some new thing.)
[22] Then Paul stood in the midst of Mars' hill, and said, Ye men of Athens, I perceive that in all things ye are too superstitious.
[23] For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.

“I love that. He said, ‘You elitists, you philosophers, you Epicureans, you Stoics.’ You know, the ‘great’ Greek philosophers still being read and taught today. Paul said, ‘You’re just a bunch of superstitious numbskulls.’ ”

(another post later)

'As the blind gropeth in darkness'

Two days ago news outlets around the world reported on a gaping 100-foot-wide hole in the ground (called the “Well of Hell”) far out in the Yemen desert that is believed to be "millions and millions" years old and a “prison for demons.”

Yahoo news reported, “Those who live near the hole, named the Well of Barhout, believe anything that comes close to the ‘Hell Pit’ will be sucked in without escape.”

Shrouded in mystery, the hole near the border of Oman is “thought to reach 330 feet down, but there are those who claim it's as much as 820 feet deep. Nobody has ever been to the bottom.

“A video crew recently flew a drone over the hole and captured stunning aerial footage of the mysterious pit. However, even with the drone flying directly over the hole and with the camera lens pointed straight down, it was impossible to see into its depths due to the extreme darkness . . .

“Not much can be seen from the edge of the well as sunlight doesn't extend very far down inside and videographers say it's hard to capture anything when they shoot down inside. Still, despite the stench emanating from it, different types of birds are often seen flying in and out of the inky darkness.”

*****

In the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the Holy Bible begins with: [1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
[3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
[4] And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

“When it says the earth was void, in other words, it didn’t have a shape, wasn’t structured and was empty,” explains Richard Jordan. “ ‘And darkness was upon the face of the deep.’ That indicates that what’s going on in verse 2 is the creation is not formed, not filled, and God isn’t there.

“That verse all by itself is the simplest reason that people for millennia have believed what is now called the Gap Theory. Their idea is God created everything perfectly.

“Isaiah 45: [18] For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.
[19] I have not spoken in secret, in a dark place of the earth: I said not unto the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain: I the LORD speak righteousness, I declare things that are right.

“Notice, God created it not in vain. He formed it to be inhabited. When you read that, you say, ‘Well, if Isaiah understood that, what’s Moses talking about back there?’

“Obviously He created the original and then something happened to it. Darkness in your Bible is the result of the judgment of God against sin and rebellion.

“People say, ‘Well what happened?’ Obviously that would be where the fall of Satan took place.

“The reason people want to believe the Gap Theory is heresy is they want to try and prove what’s called a Young Earth Theory of creation so that they can refute evolutionists.

“Look at what the verse says: ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and now there’s a radical intervention and then He recreates everything.’ That understanding is what refutes evolution, because what evolution says is it was here all these years and just came along per uniformitarianism.

“Satan was already there when God created Adam, so my point is when you try to take an apologetic point of view and then take the Bible and make it fit that view . . . To refute evolution doesn’t require you to change the Bible. Evolution refutes itself if you examine it.

“Through the ’80s, ’90s, ’2000s, evangelical fundamentalism actually put in the doctrinal statement of their churches that they believe in a young earth. That’s how engrossing that’s become.

“When it says ‘darkness on the face of the deep,’ God didn’t create His universe in darkness, because where God is there’s no darkness. That’s judgment.

“Genesis 1:3: [3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
When God moved back into His creation to repurpose it—‘I’m back!’—there was light. He made a division between the light and darkness: ‘I’m here and darkness is there.’

Genesis 15: [12] And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
[13] And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
[14] And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

“He literally is going to sense and feel what His people are going to feel when they’re cast out among the Gentiles. There’s a horror associated with darkness. You understand there’s something not good in it.

“Exodus 10: [21] And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt.
[22] And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days:
[23] They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings.

“Absolute, complete, total blackout to the point where you could feel it.

“Jude 13: [13] Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

“You can be in darkness and not have it be a real blackout, but then there’s the horror of great darkness; it’s darkness that can be felt and now you have the blackness of darkness.

“By the way, when you’re in that kind of darkness—total blackout--you can’t tell time; the perception of what time it is, how much time passes, how long something is going to last, it all goes away.

“When Christ is in that physical darkness on the Cross, the darkness makes it seem like it’s never going to end. The physical darkness put the Lord in a position where He’s suffering without the ability to tell how long it’s going to last. The perception part of it, like it’s endless. The isolation, the loneliness.

“But there’s another kind of darkness. Luke 22: [52] Then Jesus said unto the chief priests, and captains of the temple, and the elders, which were come to him, Be ye come out, as against a thief, with swords and staves?
[53] When I was daily with you in the temple, ye stretched forth no hands against me: but this is your hour, and the power of darkness.

“That’s spiritual darkness. This is the blindness of spiritual unbelief. Paul says in Colossians 1 that He ‘delivered us from the power of great darkness.’ He talks about ‘the rulers of the darkness of this world.’ So there’s a spiritual darkness that’s engulfed the religious leaders of Israel.

Luke 23: [44] And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.
[45] And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst.

“Wait a minute, if there was darkness over all the land AND the sun was darkened, that tells you there’s a different kind of darkness—it wasn’t simply the physical darkness; there was the spiritual darkness.

“It’s in that spiritual darkness that the Lord Jesus Christ is entering into combat with the rulers of the darkness of this world. You remember in Genesis 3 the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the seed of the serpent. There’s going to be a conflict, a battle.

“All through the life of Christ He had been challenging Satan and Satan would challenge back with his demonic activity. At the Cross the Lord says, ‘Where’s my adversary? Let him step up and let’s have it out.’

“The strategic victory for eternal redemption is accomplished at Calvary, where Jesus Christ didn’t simply pay the eternal consequences of our sin, but He defeated the Adversary.

“Colossians 2:15: [15] And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

“There’s a battle going on in that darkness and at Calvary, Jesus Christ won the authority, the right to deliver you from the power of darkness and put you into His life.”

(new article tomorrow)

Written for all mankind: 'Here He is'

Mark 15:33: [33] And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.

“From 9 o’clock ‘til noon Jesus Christ is being mocked and persecuted by men for speaking and doing the will of His Father,” explains Richard Jordan. “From noon to three o’clock darkness falls over the land and that’s the period when sin is being judged by God in order to accomplish eternal redemption. So there’s a division in those six hours.

I John 1:5: [5] This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
[6] If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth:

“When you have darkness you have an absence of God. It’s as though God drew a curtain over the sun and withdrew Himself from the scene. Darkness represents the judgment of God and Christ suffers on the Cross, under that darkness, for those three hours. That’s when the judgment of sin is taking place in the soul and body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

(to be continued tomorrow. In the meantime . . .

"There’s only one time the term Calvary appears in Scripture and it’s in Luke 23:33: And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

“We sing that song that goes, ‘Years I spent in vanity and pride, caring not my Lord was crucified at Calvary.’ That’s a term that in Christian parlance is the essence of the gospel.

“Do you know that term’s not found in any of the new Bibles? It’s completely taken out of all the English Bibles after 1881. They say, ‘Well, it’s a bad translation because it should say the skull.’ Well, notice John 19:17: ‘And he bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha.’

“Golgotha is the Hebrew term that means the skull. Calvary is a Latin term that means the same thing. It’s a perfectly good translation, and the fact that you can translate it and it be legitimate, John 19 tells you that.

“Over and over Luke crafts his gospel to point to Christ, not simply as Israel’s Messiah, but Israel’s Messiah through whom all the nations of the earth are going to blessed. So it’s not surprising that Luke would have a term that would focus on the Latin.

“Why that gets to be important is in the next two verses: ‘Where they crucified him, and two other with him, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst.

[19] And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH THE KING OF THE JEWS.’

“All three languages have ‘This is Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.’ It’s written over His head so that everybody can see it. It’s written for all of mankind to see: ‘Here He is.’

“God is the God who invented languages. He never confined His Word to only one. He designed it to be available in the language of the nations and this is an illustration of that."

'If I have to spend the rest of my life . . .'

Here's a quote from Epicurus that Greek-loving "atheists" love to quote:

 

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

At a Bible conference once in Michigan it was reported to us from the podium that a Grace Believer decided to become an atheist. One of the reasons he gave: “I just can’t believe a good God would allow evil in the world.”

“That’s a common idea of people who don’t want to believe in God," explains Richard Jordan. "The problem with that it is it assumes that a good God could have no reason for allowing evil to happen.

"People think, ‘Why, I wouldn’t!’ That’s the problem! It’s your pride. That thinking assumes you are omniscient and knew every possible reason for everything that happens.

*****

“You’ll never meet anybody who’s an honest atheist. When I say an honest one, I mean somebody who doesn’t have an ax to grind like guys such as (Sigmund) Freud.

"Freud said that the reason he hated religion is because he crossed the street one day and a guy standing on the corner was preaching, ‘You’re going to go to hell if you don’t trust Christ. You’re going to burn in hell.’

“Freud spent the rest of his life trying to prove that religion was just a repressed sex drive. And he’s the guy where all you got to do is drop his name and everybody thinks, ‘Oh, you’re a real intellectual.’

*****

“You’ll never meet an honest person who spent 15 hours looking at the actual evidence of the resurrection of Jesus Christ say they don’t believe in it because, if you look at the actual evidence for the resurrection, there’s only one conclusion—He came out of the grave.

“Obviously what that means is up to you. I mean, you can put any meaning to it you want to. I read a book years ago by a Jewish rabbi who believed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ based on the historical evidence, but didn’t believe He was the Messiah; he didn’t trust Him. He didn’t get the meaning that God attached to it.

“But when you recognize that there’s one man who went into death and came out, and that there’s objective, physical, historical, demonstrable evidence that you could go into a court of law with and prove it happened, well, that’s different.

“And you see that’s what Doubting Thomas came up with when he said, ‘My Lord and my God.’ He figured it out right when he saw it."

(new post tomorrow)

Unconscious fulfilling of Scripture

Today, sitting in a waiting room while my mom had her eyes dilated for a post-cataract surgery check-up, a man plopped down across from me wearing a tank top. On one of his shoulders was a huge grey-and-black tattoo of a human skull.

When John 19 says Jesus Christ, “bearing his cross went forth into a place called the place of a skull, which is called in the Hebrew Golgotha,” it’s called that because it’s a place of execution; a place of death.

When Mark 15 says “they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head, And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!" this is the Romans soldiers mocking Christ.

“Thorns in the Bible are similar to the curse God placed upon the earth because of man’s sin,” explains Richard Jordan. “They crown Him with the curse that represents the curse of sin; the curse of death.

“They put it on His head because it’s the cursed thinking; the deadly thinking of man’s sin that gets Jesus Christ crucified. He’s made a curse for us. Why? Because we have cursed thinking; thinking that produces death.

“Christ is going to take the place of the wicked thinking of man and He’s going to go there. They’re going to kill Him on the place that represents death.

“Now, by the way, these guys have no idea what they’re doing. They don’t know the crown of thorns had anything to do with . . . those Roman soldiers didn’t care one thing about the Bible or the God of Israel.

“But you’ll see as you go through Mark, and if you go to the other gospel accounts that are more full, over and over again, unconsciously, they’re fulfilling Scripture. Unconsciously they’re doing things that represent a picture of what Scripture said would happen here.

*****

“There’s a principle when you study prophecy--one of the most important ways to describe dispensational Bible study to people is to point out the issue of progressive revelation.

“When you study dispensationalism, you’re studying a time line. As the time line goes on, people know more than they did before.

“The Covenant Calvinist view is, for example, that all men in time past looked forward in faith to the Cross of Christ and they knew everything about the Crosswork that you and I know.

“They say Abel and Moses understood Jesus was going to die on the Cross for them. And you say, ‘Wait a minute, that’s not what the New Testament tells you! The 12 Apostles didn’t even know He was going to die! Well, if they didn’t know, how come these birds back yonder, 4,000 years before, knew it?! Somebody forget in the meantime?’

“In I Peter I, it says that the angels looked, when they made these prophecies like Isaiah 53, and it says they wrote it down and said, ‘Lord, what is that talking about?!’ and they didn’t know! ‘What’s He mean?!’ So you know they weren’t looking forward with an understanding of what now we look back and understand.

“You see, the idea that everybody’s saved exactly the same way--by looking forward or backward in faith to the same thing, believing Jesus is going to die on the Cross--is a denial of progressive revelation.

“Progressive revelation says there’s things back there they didn’t know that now we do know. The basis of dispensational truth is understanding the differences between that. Well, when you understand that principle, then the idea of typology becomes a fascinating subject to you.

“What happens with typology is you have things happen that you get over here, and you begin to understand something, and you’re able to look back at history back here and see how God did things, said things and taught things that at the time, you didn’t know what they meant but now you do know what they mean and can look back and see, ‘Oh, look! There’s a picture of this reality PRE-WRITTEN in the text!’

“In modern terminology we talk about prototypes. It’s a pre-picture of the reality that comes over here. A prototype demonstrates to you that whoever is writing this and organizing this, knows the future so when the reality comes, and it tells you what it is, He can say, ‘See, I had this planned all along. Look how I did this and look how I did that.’

“When you begin to think about it that way, you begin to look back into places like the Book of Leviticus and the ceremonies that are performed. Colossians 2 says these things back here are a shadow of things to come. Things aren’t in the Bible just to fill up space. So there’s a fascinating one here in Leviticus 12 that is a prototype of a time schedule . . .”

(another post later) 

Question that never ceases to come up

An evangelist blogger writes, “ ‘What about those who have never heard about Jesus and the gospel?’ No matter where we go or what subject we speak on, this question always seems to come up. Many times it is asked as a way to relieve the individual asking of any personal responsibility to God.

“The Bible clearly reveals that no one has an excuse (Romans 1:19–20). It is a fact that all of mankind can tell that a Creator does exist, because His creation testifies to it. This testimony is universal.

“The Bible teaches that the unbelieving individual is ‘holding the truth in unrighteousness’ (Romans 1:18). Moreover, the Scriptures relate that man is not seeking after God, but actually running from Him. ‘There is none that seeketh after God’ (Romans 3:11). Therefore, it is not a case of God refusing to get His Word to someone who is desperately searching for the truth.”

******

A documentary produced by Moody traced some tribal regions in Africa that, when Europeans came in contact with them in the 1700s and 1800s, they were in dark savagery. Moody traced the lineage of some of these tribes into more ancient times and discovered that the native people a thousand years before had light and knowledge; they had associations with truth but they rejected it!

“What happens with light rejected is it becomes lightning and so you don’t know where those people have been because you haven’t been there,” explains Richard Jordan. “You aren’t God and you aren’t accountable for them. But do you know how they got there? By holding the truth (the truth God put within them) in unrighteousness.

“The Scripture’s real clear in Romans 2 that if you walk in the light you have, no matter how dim the light is, it will give you light.”

(new article tomorrow)

Jesus: 'THE thing that makes life work . . . '

Jeremiah 9:23 says, "Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches."

“God says, 'You want to rejoice in something, rejoice in that you understand me and what I delight in! Come to the place where you’re as delighted about the things I’m delighted in; what I’m zealous about, you’re zealous about,' " explains Richard Jordan.

"God says, 'You think like I think in the Big Picture and it’s no longer, ‘I’m doing this because He said to do it and if I don’t do it . . . ’

"It’s, ‘I understand why it’s this way—I buy into the program and I don’t just buy into it, it’s a good thing that I delight in!’

“When Deuteronomy says a friend is as one who is as thine own soul, that means they’ve come to understand what’s in your heart. They’ve bought into it and they’ve come to delight in it the same way you delight in it.

“Jesus says to these apostles, ‘You are my friends.’ Do you know the first person in the Bible called a friend of God was Abraham?

James 2:23: [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.

"Abraham was called this because he came to the place where he understood and bought into and lived out, delighted in what the Father delighted in.

“Likewise, the apostles, the night before Christ dies, He takes them aside to say: ‘I’m going to go die. I’m going to die for you. You’re my friends. You’re the ones who I’ve . . . '

“John 15: [12] This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.

[13] Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
[14] Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
[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.

“Christ is saying, 'Just like my Father has revealed all these things to me, I’ve revealed them to you. I’ve entrusted the deposit the Father gave me with you. Just as I’ve learned what the Father is doing and I’m delighting in it, I’m giving it to you to delight in! You’re my friends. You’re as mine own soul. So I’m not going to call you servants. I’m going to call you friends because I’ve made you my friends. You’ve not chosen me but I’ve chosen you and ordained you that you should go and bring forth fruit and that your fruit should remain.’

“That goes back to chapter 14 where it's talking about this permanent nature in the New Covenant that comes in, and now they’re going to have this permanent indwelling of the Holy Spirit--this permanent heart-writing of the law, this permanent working.

“It’s not going to be temporary anymore. It’s not going to be this David stuff back in Psalm 51 where he says, ‘Don’t take it away from me,’ afraid that it would be.

"Or Saul where he does lose it, or Samson where he loses it and gets it back. It’s not going to be all of that. Now there’s going to be this permanent thing. He’s going to finish the task with Israel.

“They’re going buy into the program so fully they’re going to know what’s in line with His will. They’re going to delight in it so fully that when they talk to the Father about it, it will be just like Christ talking to the Father and it will be done. This is high ground these guys are being put on.

*****

"In John 15, Jesus is talking to people who've entered into an understanding of what Christ's doing and did what they did because they were His friends.

“I don’t know how you would define a friend. I ask people, ‘When you talk about someone as your friend, exactly what does that mean?’

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

“I think the greatest definition I know of is found in Deuteronomy 13:6: ‘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.’

“This is one of these verses in the Bible where you find a definition where the verse isn’t focusing on doing that—it just kind of does it for you in that casual assumption kind of a way which shows more power to the definition because it’s not trying to press a point; it’s just, ‘This is the assumption of what a friend is in the Bible.’

“He puts a little appositive in there—that is, a statement that defines what a friend is. And that friend is described as ‘which is as thine own soul.’ People have taken that verse and we have a term we use in the culture for it called ‘soul mate.’

“Most people when they say that, we find out they’re talking about the person they want to get married to. Someone who is your friend is someone whose soul is in oneness with yours.

“When the Lord Jesus Christ said His joy was to do the will of His Father (‘My meat is to do the will of him who sent me’), He's saying, 'The thing that gives me strength and sustenance and makes my life work is to do the will of my Father.' "

(another post later)

Some crafty scheming, some wiles

Working on a new article to post tomorrow. In the meantime . . . 

The Book of Joshua has often been called the Ephesians of the Old Testament. The Book of Ephesians has often been called the Joshua of the New Testament and the reason for that is the Book of Joshua is about Israel going into the land and possessing the land God’s already given them: ‘Go possess your possessions.’

“The Book of Ephesians is a book very similar where God is telling us, ‘Here are your possessions, now go possess them, go stand in the possessions God’s given you, fight the war of not letting them be taken away, moved away,’ " explains Richard Jordan.

“Five times in Ephesians he talks about the heavenly places; the high places. Those five times find an echo back in the Book of Joshua about the land of Canaan with Israel. It’s a fascinating kind of thing to study.

“It’s logical when Paul talks about the wiles of the devil in Ephesians that you’d find an illustration in the book of Joshua.

“Joshua 9 starts out, ‘And it came to pass, when all the kings which were on this side Jordan, in the hills, and in the valleys, and in all the coasts of the great sea over against Lebanon, the Hittite, and the Amorite, the Canaanite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite, heard thereof.’

“Notice the chapter starts with ‘and.’ In other words, what’s going to happen here, these Gentile kings from the hills, valleys, the coasts, they all get together to fight against Joshua in Israel because they heard something.

"What they heard is about the victory that he won in Jericho (chapter 6). They heard about the victory they won at Ai (chapter 8) and at the end of that, Joshua 8:30: [30] Then Joshua built an altar unto the LORD God of Israel in mount Ebal,
[31] As Moses the servant of the LORD commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the book of the law of Moses, an altar of whole stones, over which no man hath lift up any iron: and they offered thereon burnt offerings unto the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings.
[32] And he wrote there upon the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he wrote in the presence of the children of Israel.

“Israel has won this great battle and he goes over here on Mt. Ebal and he’s got a Mt. Rushmore kind of thing and chisels the 10 Commandments into the mountain. He literally takes the Word of God that is prevailed against the enemies of Israel and enshrines it in the mountain there.

Verse 34 says, And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law.
[35] There was not a word of all that Moses commanded, which Joshua read not before all the congregation of Israel, with the women, and the little ones, and the strangers that were conversant among them.

“I mean, the Word of God’s prevailed, and the victory that God gave Israel in His Word is a reality there, stark memorialized in front of everybody. And when these Gentile kings saw God’s Word prevailing, their answer, their response, to the victory of the exaltation of His Word was, ‘Let’s get together and fight!’ They had a complete, total hostility toward what God was doing in His Word through the nation Israel.

“So they gather themselves together to fight. They don’t gather together to say, ‘Oh, they’re going to take away from us all of our land. God gave it to them. Let’s surrender.’

“They just saw Jericho wiped out, they just saw Ai wiped out. They say, ‘We need to get together, guys,’ and it’s fascinating (verse 9) they’re in the hills and the valleys and the coasts. You know people in the hills and the valleys don’t get along? That’s why they live in the hills and the valleys.

“People who live on the coast are estranged from ALL of them. They get all these different disparate people…the Hittites and the Canaanites and the other ‘ites,’ they didn’t like each other, folks, but ‘the friend of my enemy is my friend,’ so they get together to fight Joshua and Israel with one accord. They get a league of nations together—the thing that binds them is hostility toward God’s Word and God’s working through Israel.

“Joshua 9 says, [3] And when the inhabitants of Gibeon heard what Joshua had done unto Jericho and to Ai,
[4] They did work wilily, and went and made as if they had been ambassadors, and took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up;
[5] And old shoes and clouted upon their feet, and old garments upon them; and all the bread of their provision was dry and mouldy.’

“Joshua 10:2 says, ‘That they feared greatly, because Gibeon was a great city, as one of the royal cities, and because it was greater than Ai, and all the men thereof were mighty.’

“Gibeon had a lot to lose. It’s a great city, bigger than Ai. Jericho and Ai were the gateway cities into Canaan but Gibeon was sort of like the plum.

“Satan is a roaring lion but he’s also a subtle serpent. ‘So were going to hedge our bet and before we go out here and attack them, we’re going to do a little shuck and jive. We’re going to use some crafty scheming, some wiles . . .’

“So what do they do? They went and made as if they had been ambassadors—important men, people of peace. Official representatives who can come and say, ‘Can’t we all just get together.’ The verse says they ‘took old sacks upon their asses, and wine bottles, old, and rent, and bound up . . .’

“Now that’s a mock, false humility. They’re trying to make it like they’ve come a LONG journey. Verse 13 says, ‘And these bottles of wine, which we filled, were new; and, behold, they be rent: and these our garments and our shoes are become old by reason of the very long journey.’

“Bunch of liars! They hadn’t gone on any long journey! They lived right next door! They’re practicing deceit. They’re trying to appear to be something they aren’t!

“Now do you remember over in Colossians he says ‘beware lest they beguile you with false humility?’ They transform themselves into the apostles of Christ and unto angels of light but what are they really? They’re deceivers.

“Joshua asked the right question in verse 8: ‘Who are you and from whence come you?’

“God had told Israel in Exodus 34 and Deuteronomy 7, ‘The inhabitants of the land of Canaan; wipe them out! Do not make any league, any covenant with them!’ and then He named them. You know who He named? These birds right here!

“Joshua says, ‘Who are you?’ and they don’t tell him. They say, ‘Oh, we came from a long way!’ They dodged the issue and lied to him. They try to deceive him. In verse 12 they say, ‘Look at this stuff!’ They get him going by sight. They say, ‘Come, experience our reality and they focus on experience. And they divert Joshua’s thinking away from the Word and the crux of it is in verse 8:14: ‘And it came to pass, when the king of Ai saw it, that they hasted and rose up early, and the men of the city went out against Israel to battle, he and all his people, at a time appointed, before the plain; but he wist not that there were liers in ambush against him behind the city.’

“You know how they deceived Joshua in Israel? You go back to Numbers 27 and God told Moses, ‘Take Joshua, sit him over here and put your mantle on him. I’m going to put my spirit on him, and just like I talked to you, I’m going to talk to him.’

“And Joshua had the capacity to communicate with God and get counsel straight from God just like Moses did and Joshua doesn’t do that. He forsook God’s Word! He went and trusted human experience, human wisdom, human thinking.

“Instead of standing in the identity and the blessings God gave Israel, and God had for Israel in His Word, He is deceived into following human viewpoint. That’s the wiles of the Adversary!

“That’s all Satan can do; he can’t change who you are in Christ. He can’t stop you from being complete in Christ. But his tact, his wile, his trick, his cunning craftiness is to do what these birds did! Get you focused on experience, on circumstance, on feelings, on something other than the truth of God’s Word, walking by sight and not by faith.”

*****

God sent prophets to Israel in each one of the five cycles of judgment. He sent His word to them. Every cycle has a major prophet associated with it. The only prophets who actually write their messages down do so in the fourth course.

The name Elijah means ‘Jehovah is my God.’ Jordan says, “Here’s God in Elijah and he leaves Israel. Comes to the Jordan river, jumps in, swims across to the other side and goes away. He’s caught up by the chariot.

“The picture is, and if you trace the places he went, you’ll see the significance of he’s in reverse order, leaving the land in the reverse order that god led Israel into the land. And it’s though God is saying, ‘I’m leaving!’ and He left.

“Now Elisha went with him and then in chapter two, Elisha jumps back in and comes back into the land. So what you have here is a point where God leaves and then comes back in with Elisha.

“II Kings 2:15 says, ‘And when the sons of the prophets which were to view at Jericho saw him, they said, The spirit of Elijah doth rest on Elisha. And they came to meet him, and bowed themselves to the ground before him.’

“Now you’re back in Joshua 3 where the Lord comes into the land. It’s sort of like, ‘There He went, here He comes.’ You’re going to move with Elisha to the third course.

“By the way Elisha has the double portion. Elijah did eight miracles. Elisha does 16.”