Enforced religion, unity

 (new article tomorrow)

The "last days" will be met with a monolithic, universal church using political coercion to produce converts and adherents. One of the final instruments employed in setting up this state religion will be music, the universal language.

Daniel 3 deals specifically with the attempted institution of an international religion by Nebuchadnezzar, a picture-type of the Antichrist and what he will do in the tribulation.

Nebuchadnezzar says in Daniel 3:15: “Now if ye be ready that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick, ye fall down and worship the image which I have made; well: but if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?”

“Nebby establishes this image’s dedication with a religious service, demanding people worship it," explains Richard Jordan. “There are things in this passage that are highly instructive for today.

Daniel 3:2 says, "Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counsellers, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces, to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up."

“You read that and you get the idea he had everybody; he didn’t leave anybody out! It’s an amalgamation of state and religion together into one and he’s proclaiming, ‘I’ll not just be the head of gold in this image, I’ll be the whole image! I’ll be the whole she-bang!’

“In other words, it’s an enforced religion—‘If you don’t worship, we’re gonna get you; we’re gonna kill you!’

"These people are determined there should be no lack of unity. Everybody is going to worship together and agree together about this thing and there isn’t going to be any division. 

“That’s why the Apostle Paul says that if a man is an idolater—that is, if he bows down to icons and images and all that kind of stuff—even if he’s called a brother, you’re to disassociate yourself from that man. Why? Because that is connected with a system that will ruin you and the people under your influence. It’s Baal worship.

“People say, ‘Well, I believe the right doctrine, but I’m just going to go along and not rock the boat.’ And they’re the types who will just bow down because the pressure’s on them to do just that.

“You know what the pressure of the religious system is? Play the game; don't make waves. Like Chamberlain said, ‘Peace at any price.’ He gave away Europe. You know what it cost? It cost the blood of thousands upon thousands upon hundreds of thousands of innocent boys on the battlefield.

“What you better maintain at any price isn’t peace; it’s truth! But they say, ‘We don’t care what your doctrine is—just bow down.’ Conformity. Unity. ‘Be one with us. Go along.’

*****

"When Daniel 3:8 reports, 'Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near, and accused the Jews,' the phrase 'accused the Jews' connects with Revelation 12:10 where John talks about Satan being 'the accuser of the brethren.'

“You see, God still had a faithful remnant even in Babylon who wouldn’t bow their knee to idols. If you go back to Exodus 20:1, you’ll see that God warned them not to do this kind of thing, and these people learned the lesson of their history.

Daniel 3:12-14 continues, “There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego; these men, O king, have not regarded thee: they serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
[13] Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Then they brought these men before the king.
[14] Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, do not ye serve my gods, nor worship the golden image which I have set up?”

“These Chaldeans come in and they begin to accuse Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego on political grounds for not obeying their religion, saying, ‘They don’t regard you, Nebby. They don’t serve your gods. They don’t go to your church. They don’t follow your orders.’

“You see, that’s what happens when you get church and state stuck together. You ever hear of anybody doing that?  It’s been going on for 2,000 years.

“The Council of Trent, in 1545, passed decrees that were binding in every country where the Roman church held sway and they said, ‘If you believe in justification through faith plus nothing, and you don’t believe in baptismal regeneration at the hands of Roman Catholic priests, or that the Apocrypha is part of the inspired Word of God, then you’re anathema. You’re accursed and the government has a right to murder you if you stand in public and say it.’

“And some of the most barbaric, butcherous, murderous acts that have ever been committed on the face of the earth happened as a result of that. The Counter-reformation,  the Valley of the Piedmont, the Spanish Inquisition—all those things went out under the authority and the sanction of the government to kill heretics and the heretics were simply Bible-believing Protestants.

“Did you know, folks, that the greatest minority in the world is an independent, Bible-believing Protestant? There’s all these groups—Hispanics, Blacks, Orientals—but do you know who the real minority is? The minority that doesn’t have ANY rights?

"It’s a bunch of saved, Bible-believing, Bible-preaching people, and if you don’t believe that, just hang around a little while longer, why don’t you!

“That’s what’s going to happen and that’s what these Chaldeans do, folks! They take them and accuse them on political grounds of not obeying religion. Now, you watch that go on and you’ll see that over and over and over in the world.”

*****

In Daniel 3: 16-18, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answer the king with, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
[17] If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
[18] But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.”

Jordan says, “Boy, you talk about putting a dude on the spot, man! Nebby says, ‘Look, guys, let’s be reasonable about this thing. You better think this thing over; I’m fixin’ to burn you! All you got to do is go out there and bow down! It ain’t no big thing! It won’t cost you any money! I mean, so what if you won’t believe; you got me between a rock and hard place, so just c’mon and be reasonable, will ya?!’

“But those three guys said, ‘Nebby, we don’t have to take conference; we’re not careful to answer you,’ meaning, ‘We’re not at all worried about this matter.’

“That word ‘careful’ there—that’s that word over in Luke 10:38 when Jesus tells Martha, ‘You’re full of care. You’re anxious, uptight and jittery; full of concern.’

“That’s like that verse over in Philippians 4 where Paul says, ‘Be careful for nothing.’ In Matthew 10:18, when Jesus says, ‘Don’t take any thought for it,’ it’s that same kind of idea.

“In other words, ‘We’re not mulling it over and getting all bent out of shape. We’re just going to give you a straight answer about the situation and we won’t have any problem with what’s going on here.’

“Now, you know something, folks, that’s a real rarity in life. They’re not in a sweat and they’re not going to be diplomatic—they’re just going to give a straight answer when they come up to a problem.

“Like the old song goes, ‘They wouldn’t bow, they wouldn’t bend and they wouldn’t burn.’ They said, ‘The God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, and if not—if He lets us burn up—hey, we’re not going to bow anyway! We’re just going to trust Him.’ "

Before He ever put it on paper on earth

"The injunction by the Apostle Paul to 'preach the Word' . . . I heard a man on the radio just the other day, a very famous radio preacher, talking about 'how you need to preach the Word' and he was going over Nehemiah 8 about the mechanics of how to preach the Word.

"I'm listening and he's reading out of an English Standard Version," recalls Richard Jordan. "I thought, 'You know, if you set the guy down and asked him,' and I've done this with people of great reputation like this guy: 'When you talk about preaching the Word, do you mean that one in your hand? Are you sure that ESV is THE absolute infallible Word of God that you possess?' You know what he would say? 'No, absolutely not.'

"You say then, 'Well, where is that Word that you're to preach?' He'd say, 'Well, it's infallible in the original.' Problem with that is you've never seen an original. There's never been one book on Planet Earth in any man's possession that was nothing but the originals.

"Did you know that the originals weren't the originals when they were originally given? You ever thought about that? If Psalm 119 says that, 'For ever, O LORD, thy word is settled in heaven,' it means the Word was in heaven before He ever put it down on paper on earth.

"Well, if the original was in heaven, and when He first wrote the Scripture here on earth it was a mirror of what was in heaven, what was this one?

"Now, I don't want you to go off and say that I'm saying the originals weren't the originals, but there's a sense in which they weren't.

"People worry about translating: 'Well, you can't translate from one language to another completely, fully.' I think, 'You know, anybody who goes around telling you that, and telling you that with a straight face like it's supposed to make sense and you're supposed to say, 'Oooh, okay, that means I can't really have a Bible,' never thought about what the original Bible was to start with.

"There's never been one book on Planet Earth possessed by any man that had nothing but the original manuscripts in it. By the time Paul wrote, all the original manuscripts of the Old Testament were lost, gone.

"So, the originals weren't the only issue, but you know when you come to translating . . . think about taking God's thinking--deity thoughts, when the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit communicated among themselves--and translating those deity thoughts into human words. If you can take the thinking of God . . . 

Isaiah 55: [8] For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.

[9] For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

"He could take His thoughts, crystallize them down into human language and write them down. Now, there's the translation challenge! If you can do that, it's a hop, skip and a jump for a blind man to go from one human language to another. There's the big step. And you get people talking about Bible translations that never considered the fact that the original writing of the Scripture was a translation out of deity thoughts into human thoughts to start with.

"God didn't come down here and just start thinking like a man thought and then decide to write a book. 'Thy word is settled in heaven forever.' You go to Psalm 8 and He talks about wisdom there and how He created the heaven and the earth with wisdom, understanding and knowledge that He had BEFORE. Wisdom says, 'I was there before He created anything.' God already has His own thoughts before He ever created anything.

"So, God's thinking then is put into human thinking, into the language of angels first and then, a little lower than the angels, into the language of men. You see, God communicating His Word takes into consideration all of the language issues.

"Now, until the Tower of Babel you didn't have all that 'catastrophe languages,' but then who was it that scattered the languages in Genesis 11? It was God.

"I'm telling you, He knows how to do all the translating, but what Satan was concerned about was challenging Eve's . . . seeking to beguile Eve into not trusting the word she had received from her husband. You and I are to have a received-text mentality."

(new article tomorrow)

Comprehending what passeth knowledge

"I went into Baker Books (Christian bookstore in Grand Rapids, MI) where first you see the new books and then you get to the old books. I've always found the old books to be the ones I'd be interested in.

"It's fascinating how all these new books have the structures of theology and systematic theology and doctrine and all this stuff and it's all structured in a very similar way," explains Richard Jordan.

"Systematic theology was developed in church history, basically founded on the ideas and approach of Thomas Aquinas. It's the way you organize thinking together.

"You hear about bibliology and pneumatology and anthropology and soteriology, and all the different ologies, and so forth and that's all the different branches of theology. The idea is if you study those things then you get this whole host of information.

"The difficulty is that that the information is structured together; all of the parts of the house are put together on the lot, but there's a blueprint about how to put them together successfully that isn't used.

"What you have to have is a blueprint. Paul says in I Corinthians 3:10: According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.

"You have to have a blueprint about how you put the doctrine together so that you have the house built. Imagine a building like our church here and you try and put all these parts to the building together but you didn't have a blueprint.

"Consequently, you don't know where a window goes. You don't know where the lights are supposed to be. You just came in one day and said, 'Well, you know I'm an electrician; I think I'll do all the electrical work here,' and you start doing it willy-nilly.

"I used to do roofing work. If you showed up at the worksite and it was cool outside, what might you think would be a good thing to do that day? Roofing work because it's good to do that in cool weather.

"So, if you show up at the worksite and there's the shingles and the nails and you say, 'Well, I think I'll lay some roof,' and you roll that felt out there on the grass and you get the little plumbline and start putting out shingles on the front lawn, you could lay them as straight and perfectly square as you want to but the problem is you're putting them in the wrong place. They're not made to be put on the front lawn; there made to be put on the roofing after the structure's been completed. 

"If you take truth, perfectly presented, but it isn't structured into your understanding according to the divine pattern, it will do you no more good--it will be of no more value--then those shingles out there on the ground in the rain.

"So what you have to have is a way to put the doctrine together the way God designed it to be put together so that it will produce in you the impact He wants you to have."

*****

Paul writes in Ephesians 3:: May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height;” And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

"It says He wants you to comprehend with all the saints, with everybody. This is not something for a particular, small elitist group. This is not something limited to a privileged few. Everybody, every saint, every member of the Body of Christ is to be able to comprehend this.

"If you're going to know the love of Christ, it's going to be because you understand the breadth, the length, the depth and the height, but you notice Paul didn't tell you of what. Oh, what Paul? So that's where the commentaries, they jump off the end of the pier.

"In grammar there's a thing called an ellipsis. If I say to you, 'Shut the door,' what's the subject? You, but it's not in the sentence. It's 'you' understood; you understand it's there. I don't have to say 'David, shut the door.' I can just say, 'Shut the door.'

"In the context here, what's the subject of Ephesians 3? It's this great mystery that's been revealed through Paul. So the breadth, length, depth and height of what? What he calls in verse 11: 'according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus.'

"All that God's doing through the Lord Jesus Christ, He wants you to see the dimensions of that and comprehend it. I love that word comprehend. You see the 'prehend' at the end of it? That comes from the Latin word 'prehendry.' A monkey has a prehensil tail. That means that monkey has a tail that can grasp on to a limb and hold on and not let go; get a grip on it.

"When you comprehend, you take your mind and you get a grip on something. You get your mind around it so that you grasp it. You make it your own. It's mine. I got it!

"The fascinating thing is he says in verse 19, 'And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.'

"Now, wait a minute, I'm supposed to grasp something that's passed knowing. You say, 'What is that?!' He's not saying you can't know it, because he just told you God could give you the capacity and the supernatural ability. What's He's saying by it 'passeth knowledge' is it's a never-ending process."

(new article tomorrow)

He reveals what's in God's mind

Well, got my computer back and have limited time now to buy a new one. I was given a terminal diagnosis but at least I didn't pay anything for this assessment. The guy told me the computer is actually making a scratching noise, which means the hard drive is failing. The thing is, I only bought this laptop a year ago! He said laptops are like cars--they wear down over time, especially if they're not maintained properly. How did I know there is a 'bios' something or other that needs to be updated?

So, I asked him what brand to get. He said they're all pretty much the same and I needed to get one with an SSD. Okay, but still, what brand do you recommend? He said he'd get a Lenovo, which is what I currently have! I said how about Dell? 'Yeah, that's okay.' So, I'll have to figure it out.

Will post a new article tomorrow and thanks for being patient.

******

Revelation 19:15 says, “And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.”

“You see how it goes out of His mouth?" says Richard Jordan. "Folks, when you’re facing the Lord Jesus Christ, as these people are, you know what you’re facing? It’s just like facing the Book.

"Listen, when you sit and read that Book, that’s like God Almighty sitting across the table from you talking to you. And when you read it, don’t you ever forget that!

"Now, if you won’t forget that, you’ll fall in love with that book in a way you never did before. And it will consume you. It will pull and tug at you and you won’t ever want to get too far away from it.

“But don’t you ever forget that when that Book begins to deal with you, that’s why it’s doing it. If God Almighty were to stand here tonight and say something to you and you’d do it because He stood here and said it to you, and you wouldn’t do it because that Book said it to you, there’s something wrong with you spiritually. It’s the same difference and that’s the design.”

*****

"Paul writes in Ephesians 4, [17] This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind,
[18] Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart:
[19] Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness.
[20] But ye have not so learned Christ;
[21] If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:

“The word 'but' is a disjointive conjunction meaning ‘stop.’ When Paul says, ‘But you have not so learned Christ,’ he's saying, 'What you learned from Christ is the reverse of all that other stuff.'

“Verse 21 is an interesting verse because Christ didn’t hear for you to hear. People say, ‘Well, the Lord spoke to me,’ and my first question is, 'What kind of accent did He have?'

“I mean, Isaiah said, ‘I heard Him in my ear.’ You say, ‘Well, He didn’t speak with an audible voice.’ How do you speak without an audible voice?! You say, ‘Well, it was in my head.’ Well, you had to hear it in your head . . .

“How did you hear Him? Well, He isn’t standing here. He’s not personally here but He’s given us His thinking. Paul says in I Corinthians, ‘That you may have the mind of Christ.’ In Col. 3:16 he talks about how ‘the word of Christ dwells in you richly.’

“In I Timothy 6, Paul talks about ‘consenting to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ He’s talking about the epistle that he’s writing. You understand when you listen to Paul’s epistles, you’re listening to Jesus Christ tell you what His thinking is? You literally are hearing Him!

“That’s why, folks, if you don’t understand how to rightly divide the Scripture, you’re going to wind up absolutely out in left field in the dark.”

*****

John 1:1:[1] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

"What in the world would it mean to call the Lord Jesus Christ the Word? What do you do with words? You express yourself; you reveal what's in your mind, what's in your heart. The Lord Jesus Christ is the one who's going to reveal what's in the mind and heart of God.

"To understand who God is and to grasp His person you can't look at creation. Creation doesn't tell you the person of God. It will tell you about the power of God and some natural things, but it doesn't tell you about Him as a person.

"If you're going to know Him, Jesus tells Phillip in John 14:9, 'If you've seen me you've seen the Father.' If you want to know God you have to look at the Lord Jesus Christ.

"Paul's got that wonderful passage in II Corinthians 4:6 about 'the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ'. But Jesus Christ is not just revealing God as God through all of His attributes. His purpose in revealing God is to reveal to you what's in God's heart because that's how you really get to know someone.

"If you really want to get to know someone, fall in love with them. You don't just want to know about them; you want to know them. The way you know them is to understand what they're thinking, how they think about things, how they react to things. What are their plans, what are their purposes? Where are they going? Are they able to get there?

"Jesus Christ as the Word implies that the godhead's got a plan and that Jesus Christ is the agency of the godhead through whom that plan is going to be communicated. That is such a stupendous thing to grasp. It's not to diminish at all . . . in fact, it's to glorify the fact Jesus Christ is the revealer of God and without Him you couldn't know God.

"What you're learning about God isn't just that He's high and mighty and lifted up, righteous and holy. I mean, He revealed that to Moses about Himself and the one who revealed that was God the Son, but the purpose in all that revelation is to bring you into an appreciation of what God's plan in His creation is, and the ultimate goal of God is to glorify Himself in Jesus Christ. That's where that ultimate issue comes in.

"The Lord Jesus Christ is going to be the Word, the medium, the agency through whom God reveals His mind and His will and He literally just lays bare His heart.

"John 1:18: [18] No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

"What do you do when you declare something? You set it forth, you tell it out. You've probably heard the expression, 'Well, I do declare.' 

"Hebrews 1 begins, [1] God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,

[2] Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
[3] Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high;

"Notice that Jesus Christ is the express image of His person and we see that in John 1. In John 1 and 2 he tells you that Jesus Christ is the spoken out image of God. God spoke by His Son whom He's appointed heir of all things.

"Jesus says in Revelation 1:8: [8] I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.

"Verse 11: [11] Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

"Alpha is the first letter in a Greek alphabet and Omega is the last letter. Words are made of letters and what Jesus is saying there is, 'I'm God's alphabet and I'm the one who's going to display and spell out for you the mind of God and what God's got to say; I'm the one going to lay it all out for you.'

"By the way, when He says 'I'm Alpha,' He's saying, 'The last thing God's going to say to you is going to come from me.' That's why in Hebrews 1 He says, 'In these last days.' The conclusion of revelation is going to come from Jesus Christ. That's why it isn't Paul, it's 'the preaching of Jesus Christ' because it's Christ who's the issue even in Paul's ministry.

"Henry Culp pointed out one time that the phrase is translated in a unique way in Acts 14. Verse 15 says, [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. Verse 12 says, [12] And they called Barnabas, Jupiter; and Paul, Mercurius, because he was the chief speaker.

"That term 'chief speaker' is the term for Word over there. If you took that translation of the Word and applied it to John 1, what you'd have is God the Son is the chief speaker of the godhead. They nominated God the Son and that's exactly the idea there.

"It's the idea in Colossians when Paul says He's 'the image of the invisible God'. Adam was God's spokesman in the earth; Jesus Christ is the one member of the godhead who's going to speak on behalf of the godhead.

"Psalm 33:6 says, [6] By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. Notice again how it's connected with creation, just as it is in John 1."

This is how to respond to 'that'

From yesterday morning's sermon at my church:

"When you multiply a (circumstance or situation) by self-pity, that middle letter of the word 'sIn', and focus there, that, 'Oh, woe is me'--that brooding over that, rehearsing it over and over, will always equal depression.

"Every time you have depression that will be there and it's the key to change. You can't change the circumstances, or the fact that you respond to them, but you can change the way you look at it," explains Richard Jordan.

"When Paul says, 'In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you,' that's the key. Change the self-pity to thanksgiving. The way you think about the issues produces the emotional response.

"Emotions are the result of the way you think. Events are just events. Something that happens just happens until you interpret it. You impute a meaning to it: 'They did that; that means this.' When you do that, 'this' becomes the reality of your experience. 'This' becomes what 'that' means to you.

"You can only experience in life what you're thinking it means. So if you change the way you think, you change your emotions.

"Emotions are always based as responders. Reality comes not from what you interpret something to mean, but what's the truth of the situation and the only place you're going to get absolute truth is out of God's Word. So I need to take what God's Word says and apply that and create reality.

Proverbs 4:23: [23] Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life.

"The things that issue out of your life, what the reality of your experiences are, come out of your heart and your heart has a mind, a will and emotions. Your will chooses to take what you think and apply it and your emotions respond."

(new article tomorrow for certain)

It's a marvel to Jesus

(new article on monday--i've been coping with recurring illness rearing its ugly head again and am now away from home)

Mark 6: [3] Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

[4] But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
[5] And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

[6] And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

"They're not admiring Christ; they're mad at Him, jealous of Him. And you've got to understand their unbelief--their astonishment, their offense--came out of envy and jealousy. At the heart of hatred and unbelief is going to be those two things," says Richard Jordan.

"There are only two times it says Jesus marveled. One, He marveled at the centurion's faith in Luke 7--that a Gentile would have this great faith to believe the Messiah when Israel wouldn't. This centurion understood the Abrahamic blessing. He had blessed Israel, built them a synagogue. They come to Jesus and say, 'He's worthy of the Abrahamic blessing; he's blessed us.'

"These hometown folk in Mark 6 are a picture of what's going on in the nation. That's really the core issue here. It was their folly. They've got all this evidence to believe and they don't believe.

"These are not just isolated incidents in Christ's life; there's a bigger picture of Israel. He comes to His own country, His own people, His own kin, and although He's manifested and demonstrated Himself with the mighty works and the words of wisdom, they receive Him not.

*****

"Their jealousy and unbelief represents Jeremiah 2: [11] Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? but my people have changed their glory for that which doth not profit.
[12] Be astonished, O ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the LORD.
[13] For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.
[14] Is Israel a servant? is he a homeborn slave? why is he spoiled?

"That's the idea of marveling. 'Just be astonished. Let it scare the britches off of you.' He says, 'They've forsaken me. I'm the source of life! But they didn't just forsake me, they went out and tried to make a substitute that can't even hold water, much less the water of life!'

"They've taken the Word God gave them, the oracles of life, forsaken it and gone after a vain religious system that can't do anything. Jeremiah told them, 'Listen, you want to be astonished, you want to marvel, you want to let your 'What-in-the-world's-going-on?' hang out . . .' That's the situation in Israel and there they are.

"When it says in Mark 6:5, 'He could there do no mighty works,' this is one of these things where faith healers will tell you, 'Well, you just didn't have enough faith to get healed.'

"Here's a bunch of people in unbelief, and when unbelief is prevalent, all they could do is get healed! He couldn't do any mighty works; He'd just go out and heal a few people. Now, the few opposed to the many; the point is it's the little flock amongst the apostate nation.

"All this stuff where people use the Bible to abuse you . . . what religion does with that is they use the Bible to put you under a guilt trip so you'll send them more money to get you out from underneath that guilt trip.

"There's a lot more dangerous aspects to teaching people tithing than just getting their money. It's putting them under a guilt trip where you cripple them with guilt, shame, failure and fear. That's what unbelief does.

*****

"In Matthew 13, it says, [58] And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief. He did not do them because He could not do them.

"That's like in John where it says they did not believe that Isaiah 53 might be fulfilled, therefore they could not believe. You see, the 'could not' comes after the 'did not', because of the hardness of their heart in their unbelief.

"John 7 says He's been speaking words of wisdom that they recognize. They're just mad about it because those mighty works make Him the standout and they say, 'Hey, he's just one of us; he's from our town. He's our neighbor; he's raised just like we are. He's not any different than us; he can't teach us anything.'

"You see how dumb that is? If He can't teach anybody anything because He came from your town like you are, that means you can't either. You just condemned yourself. That's what Christ is marveling at; how stupid unbelief is, how counterproductive. You look at any kind of unbelief and it will always be that way.

"John 7:14 [14] Now about the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and taught.
[15] And the Jews marvelled, saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?
[16] Jesus answered them, and said, My doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me.

"Now you're back in the same situation as in Mark 6. Jesus answered them and said in verse 17, 'If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.

"That's a startling kind of a statement. He said, 'If you have in your heart a willingness to God's will that will create the capacity for detecting the divine authority of what Christ is saying.'

"You have to always remember that unbelief comes, not because there isn't enough evidence, but because there's a disposition in the heart that doesn't want God's will.

*****

After doing mighty works, Jesus Christ comes back to Nazareth and the reaction there is they don't want Him now either.

Luke 4:22 says, [22] And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?

"It's, 'That's Joe's kid! When did he get so smart? Where does he get off saying all these things?!'

Verses 28-29 say, [28] And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath,
[29] And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong.

"The first time He was there teaching in that synagogue it didn't end well, to put it in a way. He's gone out, He's preached, He's done all these mighty miracles and wonders and then He comes back to His own.

"Mark 6 begins, [1] And he went out from thence, and came into his own country; and his disciples follow him.
[2] And when the sabbath day was come, he began to teach in the synagogue: and many hearing him were astonished, saying, From whence hath this man these things? and what wisdom is this which is given unto him, that even such mighty works are wrought by his hands?

"When it says they were astonished it doesn't mean they were, 'Woo, wow, He's doing a great job!' It's, 'Who does this guy think he is anyway?!' You see how Mark says in verse 6, [6] And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.

"They're suspicious of what He's doing; they're not there being happy about it. Verse 2 has them asking, 'From whence hath this man?'

"You see that 'this man'? They're saying, 'Who is he to elevate himself over us?! I mean, he's Joe's kid; he's no big deal.'

"They're offended at Him because they think He's trying to make something of Himself--'He ain't no better than we are!' They're scandalized.

"They're suspicious of where He got the power and His ability to teach and preach it with authority like He did. They don't believe it's come from a legitimate source. They really think it's come from the underworld of evil.

"We've looked at passages saying this, [22] And the scribes which came down from Jerusalem said, He hath Beelzebub, and by the prince of the devils casteth he out devils.
[23] And he called them unto him, and said unto them in parables, How can Satan cast out Satan?

"They're claiming He's got the spirit of Beelzebub. They say, 'God didn't send you.' They're reasoning in Mark 6:2 is based on verse 3: [3] Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, the brother of James, and Joses, and of Juda, and Simon? and are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended at him.

*****

"In verse 3 you get a glimpse into the early life of Jesus Christ. This passage is probably one of the more revealing ones. At 12 years old, Jesus knew He was, He had an awareness. He'd learned from the Scripture His identity.

"Jesus Christ literally worked in His daddy's business. When you look at Mark 6 where He's called 'the son of Mary,' evidently by this time Joseph was dead, because it doesn't call Him the son of Joseph.

"Evidently by this time the Lord Jesus is the breadwinner in the home and He's 'the carpenter.' He's the first-born and He would be the one who's the head of the house and responsible for its upkeep and protection and provision after His dad isn't there. And even when His dad was there He was working with His dad, learning how to be a carpenter.

"If you think about that, that's just a normal kind of a life. He lived in a normal, run-of-the-mill family. He's got four brothers and at least two sisters. Mary's got at least seven kids.

"It's a busy household with a normal family life, and what that tells you is the Lord Jesus Christ truly participated in our humanity. It was not a royal, palatial kind of a thing.

"When they call Him 'the son of Mary,' there is a background to that statement. In John 8, the religious leaders in Jerusalem say, 'You see what they said about Jesus?' John 8:41 says, 'Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God.'

"They say, 'We know who are daddy is; you don't. We're not born of fornication like you.' There was an insufferable stigma attached to the reputation of His family. Think about it. His mother, engaged to Joseph, comes up pregnant. Joseph marries her anyway, but he's not the daddy and that became publicly known.

"There's this hint of a 'this man.' 'He's just a dude that works down at the corner and, by the way, there's that rumor about Mary.'

"By the way, Mary had four more boys and sisters (plural) after Jesus was born, Mary was not a perpetual virgin. That's just a lie taught by Romanists in order to propagate their worship of the Queen of Heaven, which is a pagan goddess that goes all the way back to Genesis 11 in Baal worship. The idea that it's a perpetual virginity is just part of the pagan ritual.

*****

"Jesus has cleansed the temple at the beginning of his ministry. John 2:16-17: [16] And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise.
[17] And his disciples remembered that it was written, The zeal of thine house hath eaten me up.

"In other words, when Jesus cleansed that temple, the verse in Psalm 69:9 was being fulfilled. Psalm 69 is a messianic psalm that prophesies and foretells the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. The verse reads, [9] For the zeal of thine house hath eaten me up; and the reproaches of them that reproached thee are fallen upon me.

"Prophetically this is Christ talking in verse 8: [8] I am become a stranger unto my brethren, and an alien unto my mother's children.

"Now, no new bible's going to know how to get rid of that one because they don't know it's there unless they hear somebody like you talk about it!"

Exposing Israel's politicians, priests

(well, still working on new article and will post tomorrow now)

Ezekiel 8:11: [11] And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

"The reason the 70 is important is because in Exodus 24 when God made the Mosaic Covenant with the nation Israel, there were 70 elders of the nation who signed the covenant.

"The 70 were chosen, Numbers 11, to oversee . . . these are the political, governmental representatives of the people. Here's the politicians. This is state-sponsored apostasy; it's what's in the HEART of the leaders of the nation," explains Richard Jordan.

Verse 12: [12] Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

"When he says they're doing it in the dark, ever man in the chambers of HIS imagery, every one of these guys has their own pet god--the one that's their favorite and what's happening here is Ezekiel is seeing it as being exposed.

Ezekiel 14: [1] Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.

[2] And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[3] Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?
[4] Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;
[5] That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.

"Watch it keep happening in Ezekiel 8:13: [13] He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

"The image was bad, these 70 rulers of Israel in the dark worshipping graven images of their imaginations was ever worse, but He said there's something even worse than that.

Ezekiel 8:14: [14] Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

"Tammuz is the god of the spring, the fertility god. The idea is winter comes, there's death, and then there's the rebirth of the spring, and what they're weeping about is Tammuz died, but he's going to rise again. The contrast with that is the God of Israel NEVER dies. You're weeping for a false god who's going to die and come back to life--that's where all the abominations of the fertility god come in.

"You go back in Kings and read about these things and when Hezekiah cleaned them all out, part of what he did was he took all the Sodomites out. All of that is always connected to a spiritual degeneration.

"Then He says in verse 15: [15] Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

"Things just get worse and worse and worse. The last thing, and this is the one that's sort of the bottom of the barrel . . . 

Verse 16: [16] And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

"The inner court is where the priests ministered and there's a porch. It's got the two pillars and there's the Most Holy where the ark is and God's manifestation.

"He's standing at that door on the porch. You remember in Matthew 23 when he talks about Zachariah being the blood of the martyrs who was murdered between the porch and the altar? That's the porch; you're in the inner sanctum. You're literally in front of the door that leads you into the presence of God.

"Now the thing about it is, before you had the politicians and now you've got the priesthood and watch what they're doing. Their face is toward the east. They literally turned their backs on Jehovah, His presences, His glory, and are looking toward the east to worship the sun.

"They turned their back on their Creator and they're worshipping the creature. That's the very essence of what idolatry is per Paul's definition in Romans 1. They've literally turned their backs on who He is, what He's done.

Chapter 8 ends with, [17] Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

[18] Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

Love so amazing, so divine

(sorry for delay and new article tomorrow. I've had to work on my days off to make up for leaving town this weekend.)

One of the great hymns of faith, "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross", written by Isaac Watts and published in 1707, "is significant for being an innovative departure from the early English hymn style of only using paraphrased biblical texts," according to Wikipedia, "although the first couplet of the second verse paraphrases Galatians 6:14a and the second couplet of the fourth verse paraphrases Gal.6:14b.

"The poetry of 'When I survey . . . ' may be seen as English literary baroque.^[1]"

According to Barry's Hymns blog, "It is said that as a teenager Watts complained to his father about the monotonous way Christians in England sang the Old Testament Psalms. His father, a leading deacon, snapped back, 'All right young man, you give us something better.' "

Wikipedia: "The second line of the first stanza originally read, 'Where the young Prince of Glory dy'd'. Watts himself altered that line in the 1709 edition of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, to prevent it from being mistaken as an allusion to Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the heir to the throne who died at age 11.^[2]

"The hymn's fourth stanza ('His dying crimson . . .') is commonly omitted in printed versions, a practice that began with George Whitefield in 1757.^[3]

"In the final stanza, some modern variations substitute the word 'offering' for 'present'."

5. Were the whole Realm of Nature mine,
    That were a Present far too small;
    Love so amazing, so divine,
    Demands my Soul, my Life, my All.

Of the hymn's critical acclaim, Barry's blog notes, "Tedd Smith is quoted as saying, 'It seems to me that Isaac Watts wrote this text as if he were standing at the foot of Christ's cross.' Charles Wesley reportedly said he would give up all his other hymns to have written this one. Concerning the hymn's creation, there is no special story that makes it stand out from others that he wrote.  But what makes this hymn unique is the particular beauty of its language and imagery, and the power with which it highlights the most significant event in human and personal history - the cross of Jesus Christ."

Jeremiah saw good times come to screeching halt

(new article tomorrow)

"This passage probably gets preached on more than any other passage in the Book of Jeremiah. Jeremiah 20:

[7] O LORD, thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived: thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed: I am in derision daily, every one mocketh me.
[8] For since I spake, I cried out, I cried violence and spoil; because the word of the LORD was made a reproach unto me, and a derision, daily.
[9] Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.
[10] For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, saying, Peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him.
[11] But the LORD is with me as a mighty terrible one: therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail: they shall be greatly ashamed; for they shall not prosper: their everlasting confusion shall never be forgotten.

"When you look at the five major prophet books, Isaiah is probably considered the greatest. Ezekiel is the most difficult to understand; there's things in his book that are really tough. Daniel is the most beloved, the one everybody likes the most. But Jeremiah is, without a doubt, the most heroic of the prophets," says Richard Jordan.

"He's one of my favorite characters in the Bible because when you look at his life, and you understand what's going on with him, he demonstrates what a Believer does when things around about him are all falling apart.

"His whole nation collapses in front of his face; the community, the nation, the world about him. They just all go to pieces and you learn about hope in Jeremiah in an hour of despair and darkness.

"In Romans 15:8, Paul talks about the patient and comfort we get from the Scripture that gives us hope and that's something that the Book of Jeremiah, when you see what he goes through . . .

"We talk about the nation Israel as being God's nation in the earth, separated from the Gentiles, but you have to remember what God did with Israel is He set them apart from the nations in order to make them the exemplary nation.

"It's sort of like the city on the hill concept; He set them up here to be separate so He could demonstrate through them what it would like to be a nation who had the God of the Bible as their God; who's laws were given by God.

"As Deuteronomy says the Gentiles said to Israel, 'What nation is so great that has God so near to them?'

*****

"In God's dealing with Israel, debt is called slavery. America got rid of personal slavery in the 1800s, but we instituted almost immediately institutional slavery and part of it is debt. In Israel debt was for emergencies and it was always to be short-term. When you look at how Scripture sets up that system and look at where we are now, you say, 'Boy, things are just going to come to a screeching halt sooner or later.'

"Well, in Jeremiah's life all those chickens had come home to roost in Israel. What you see in Jeremiah, for the most part, is what people go through, especially Believers, in the final years of the collapse of a nation.

"It's a time when there's political and economic crisis. A time when there's tremendous shocking moral decay; when there's increasing international threats, when there's a failure of national leadership.

"One of the things about Jeremiah that strikes me is his life covered a period in the history of the nation Israel very much like in my life, and with many of you others, in our nation.

"Jeremiah was called early in life to be a prophet. He was a P.K. (preacher's kid), raised in the home of people who had an interest in the spiritual life of the nation. His daddy probably was the high priest during the days of King Josiah. Josiah was the last king of Israel who restored Israel back to spiritual worship.

"In the days of Josiah, the temple had been in a mess and he sent his high priest to go through some paperwork in the basement and discovered a copy of the law of Moses that had long been lost.

"When he found it, King Josiah said, 'Woah, this is God's Word! We haven't been doing God's Word; we've got all this Baal worship and paganism,' and he restored the law to Israel and there's a tremendous spiritual reformation. They had the last big spiritual revival in Israel before the Babylonian captivity.

"Now, the revival didn't last long. Jeremiah was there in II Chronicles mourning at the funeral of Josiah. Jeremiah watched his nation for 40-some odd years go down and Israel get crushed under the heel of Babylonian captivity and be carried away. He watched his nation collapse.

"Jeremiah ministered for over 40 years. There's not one record of a convert that he ever had. You look around this room and we've got more Believers associated with us than Jerry ever seemed to have in his book. He never seemed to have any success in the preaching that he did.

"He was constantly mocked. People were laughing at him, they were scorning him, they were persecuting him. He never had any seeming success but he remained faithful to the task God gave him. All the personal struggles, all the attacks, all the dangers, all the sorrows.

Jeremiah's call to the ministry is in Jeremiah 1:

[4] Then the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[5] Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.

"Here's God's preparation. Calvinists like to take that verse and say, 'See, God preordained a life map for this guy,' and use it for hokey things, but what the Lord is saying to Jeremiah there is, 'Before you were born I was working in your family. I've been working in your lineage way back there with your parents and your grandparents. I've been working in your family, and where you are right now is the result of me working in Israel and in your heritage and I've ordained you. I've called you to be a prophet.' "

Seeing what the world doesn't

"I used to preach on the street in Alabama and when I came to Chicago I'd go downtown into the Loop and stand and watch all these people going by. All these people running to and fro in darkness.

"We understand something that is of eternal value, but if you turn a little light on, people run like sour bugs. I don't know about you, but if I think about that enough I get aggravated and I get a little depressed," says Richard Jordan. 

"Shining His light in darkness is a challenging thing, is what I'm trying to say. It's challenging in every way and the world doesn't get it. Everything you do--you know, we do radio, TV, fair ministries, on and on. I just talked to lady yesterday telling me 'how frustrating it is that I have this information and my family just won't see it.'

"I want to look at a guy who faced the same situation--Noah. Hebrews 11:1 says, [1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

"That actually is not a definition of faith; it's a description of what faith does. Faith is what provides the substance of things hoped for. You have this hope; this stuff out in the future, but you don't have any evidence right now that that's true. You have a promise and faith is what gives the conviction that what that future thing that's coming is a reality. It's the evidence of things not seen.

"Faith comes by hearing. Faith is dependent on what God says. You're persuaded. In Romans 4 it says Abraham was 'fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.'

"That's the better definition of faith. This is a description of faith's work; of faith's accomplishment. That's why he says in verse 6 that without faith it is impossible to please Him. There's that thing we know and yet you have to have faith to see it; faith to understand it. Because it's the Word that gives light.

Hebrews 11:7: [7] By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

"He was 'warned of God of things not seen as yet.' Noah was given some hidden information. We've been given some hidden information about a future event that was completely unbelievable by everybody you talked to.

"Noah says, 'Hey, God's going to destroy this planet with rain.' And you know what everybody said to him? 'That's scientifically impossible.'

"Look back at Genesis 2: [4] These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

"The ecology system before the Flood was that it didn't rain. There was a mist dew that came up and watered. The hydro-system was different.

"In Noah's day, when he was told, 'It's going to rain; the skies are going to open up and water is going to come down and cover the whole planet and destroy everybody,' he told others, 'I'm building a boat; you got to get into that boat.'

"For 120 years, Noah goes about building that boat because God told him what was going to happen in the future and He believed what God said. But he couldn't point to scientific evidence. He couldn't point to experience.

"Can you image how people horse-laughed him? Can you imagine what people said about him? What his kids had to experience when they went to school? Go down to the mall? 'Your old man's crazy, you know that?!'

"He goes over to the lumber yard and gets lumber and people say, 'Are you nuts?!' They say to the boys' girls, 'Why, you going to marry into that family?! Are you nuts?!'

"But what does light do? It reproves. So Hebrews 11 says he condemned the world. How? By building the ark.

"He didn't have any evidence to point to except what God said and the world didn't get it because nobody believed him. After 120 years he only had his family as converts. You think, 'Man, you talk about feeling like your ministry's not getting anywhere!' But he believed what God said.

"You and I are building an ark for people to get out of the world into the Body of Christ. All we have to do is point to God's Word, but you know the world doesn't see in God's Word what we see in it."

Dealing with God Himself

"People say, 'The King James is so hard to read; we want something easier.' Why in the world would you want God to talk to you like your pal? Wouldn't you rather He talked to you like God?

"A writer for the Chicago Tribune once wrote just that. He said, 'I'm not a Believer but I think God ought to sound a little more like God than somebody's counselor.'

"You see, there's something about the Word of God that's different from anything else and people know that," says Richard Jordan. "When you try to dumb it down and make-believe that making it easier to read is going to make it easier to understand, you've cut the heart out of everything there is about understanding God's Word, because understanding it has nothing to do with making it easier to read.

"If you could read it in the original language He wrote it in, it isn't easy to read. Oh, yeah. When you get a passage in your Bible that's kind of knotty and hard to understand, you know what, you go read the Greek text or the Hebrew text and you know what you'll find out? It's kind of knotty and hard to understand there too.

*****

Hebrews 4:12: [12] For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

"The reason that first phrase is translated that way is the Word of God, it's not just that it's alive--it's alive and able to work quickly. Listen, when you take the solution God's Word gives you and apply it to your life it doesn't take forever to solve the problem. 

The verse says the Word is 'sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.'

"It can get right down to the nitty-gritty of what's going on in your inner man. It's a discerner of the thoughts and intents . . . ooh, wait a minute. When you read that Book, it's reading you! That's why some of you don't like to read it.

"That Book is the only way as a Believer you can know whether you're walking in the flesh or in the Spirit; whether it's that old life that's running you or it's the new man.

"Look at verse 13: [13] Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

"Who is the 'him with whom we have to do'? That's God. But he says the Word of God is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of your heart because God knows what they are. In the passage, he talks about the Word of God doing what God does.

"When you're dealing with that Book, you're not dealing with any other book like it. There isn't another. God's design is that when you're dealing with God's Word you're dealing with God Himself. And if you're going to deal with the God of creation, you're going to deal with Him through His Word. That's how powerful that Book is. That's what that Book is. There's God literally talking to you and you've got it in your hand.

"The Bible Believer's attitude is, 'When I'm facing God's Word, I'm facing God Himself and that Book's going to be a discerner of what's going on inside of me in a way that I couldn't do myself--in a way that only God could do.' 

*****

"Let me show you an illustration. Here's how Paul thought about it. Romans 9:17: [17] For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

"If you go back to Exodus 9:16, the one who is talking in the passage is Jehovah. Jehovah says to Pharoah, 'Even this same purpose have I, Jehovah, raised thee up,' but who does the verse say said that? The Scripture said it.

"In Paul's mind, when you're reading the Scripture, you're reading what God says. The power and the authority of the Scripture is there because it's God speaking. Paul doesn't hesitate to use God and the Scripture interchangeably.

"That passage in Romans deserves some real cogitation. When God speaks it's the Scripture, and when the Scripture speaks, it's God speaking. That's where the power and the authority of that Book comes and it's not like any other book you'll ever read.

Galatians 3:8: [8] And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.

"Folks, who tells the future? Only God can do that. But Paul doesn't mind saying the Scripture does what God does, because when you're reading the Scripture, you're reading what God's doing.

"A Bible Believer's viewpoint is that, 'When I'm dealing with that Book, it's God talking and if I want to talk to God, I've got to go to that Book to get it.' I don't go to dreams, spirits, seances, religious activities. I don't do a bunch of praying and asking God to talk to me. He already has and I've got it in a Book.

"David says in Psalm 138:2: [2] I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

"Write down by that verse Nehemiah 9:5 where it says 'blessed be thy glorious name, which is exalted above all blessing and praise.'

"In Philippians 2, Paul says, [9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

[10] That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

"His name is above everything and He takes His Word and puts it ABOVE that! That's God's attitude."

(new article tomorrow)