A drink from some cool spring

(new article tomorrow--this is lame excuse but my right ear, starting yesterday, is suddenly really clogged up and I'm praying it's just ear wax buildup blocking the works. I'm now applying Debrox drops and will use a new water device I just purchased at Wal-Mart after a few days of letting the medicine soften up the wax. We have a 60-some-year- old retired neighbor (a career-long nurse in Boston) who recently lost almost all her hearing when both ears were impaired from a viral infection. It took over a month for hearing to return to the one ear and she's still waiting for the other to come around! So I am very thankful that's not my issue.)

*****

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

*****

“The mountain of Lebanon derived its name from the white crown of snow, which it wore all the time," writes Bible commentary author Cora MacIlravy, circa 1916. "Streams of pure, cold water flowed down its sides or found their way through underground channels to the thirsty valleys below. These mountain streams never failed, never became stale and tasteless, warm and unrefreshing.

"From a higher source than any earthly mountain, comes the living water with which we are refreshed; though the channel through which it flowed, appeared so lowly when upon earth.

“This Fountain of gardens was so uncomely in His human body, this Well of living water was so weak and despised as He hung and died on the Cross, that He appeared no greater than any other man as they laid His lifeless body away in the tomb.

"But this Fountain had its source in the Holy Mountain of God, it issued from the throne of God. It came from the everlasting hills in Heaven and flowed down to earth, bringing life wherever it flowed, watering the wilderness and making the desert to blossom as a rose.

“He is the Fountain of gardens; every garden and every part of God’s great Vineyard must receive all its refreshment from Him and Him alone. All our fountains are in Him, He waters the vineyard of your life and mine.

"It matters not how fierce the wind may blow, nor how hot the valley is through which we are passing, if we keep the connection opened between our souls and the great Fountain of life, the Well of living streams will ever flow from the throne of God. Sometimes they are like rivers, sometimes like hidden underground springs, but they never run dry.”

*****

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

Jesus Christ promises in John 7: 38: "He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water."

“You can have water as dew or as rain, but here it’s living water in the sense it is flowing,” explains Richard Jordan. “Water represents the effectiveness and efficiency of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The living water represents the life that’s in Christ; the life the Messiah will provide.

*****

“Rivers are often used in Scripture to demonstrate the mission of the Spirit of God. Isaiah 48:18 says, ‘O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea.’

“The peace of God comes from your faith resting in the truth of God’s Word, which then allows the Spirit of God to produce the fruit of love, joy, peace.

“Isaiah 41:17-18 says, ‘When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.
[18] I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.’

“He’s going to quench the thirst of the thirsty, meaning He’s going to satisfy the hearts of Israel. You see the descriptions there that kind of match what Christ says in John 7?

“Look at Psalm 36:8 and Psalm 42:1. The blessings God gave Israel will flow Israel out to the needy and it will be like a river, and when someone comes and drinks of the river, he is satisfied and finds peace. You can go on and on and on with the (analogies).

*****

“Jeremiah 2:13 says, ‘For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.’

“The fountain is sort of like an artesian well; it flows naturally, you can’t stop it. A cistern is a bucket you hold water in, but their bucket’s got a hole in it. They’ve forsaken God and they got buckets that can’t hold water.

“That’s a description of the spiritual condition the nation is in. But who is ‘the fountain of living water’? God is; He’s the source.

“What Jesus Christ is doing in John 7 when He talks about how ‘out of his belly shall flow living waters,’ He’s literally reaching back into Jeremiah, taking a symbol and describing what they’ve forsaken.

*****

“I once wrote down every verse in the Bible about rivers. Rivers start out in Genesis 2. There are four named in Eden and each one has a specific relationship to the land.

“The better known rivers include the Nile, the Euphrates, the Tigris, the Jordan. There’s the rivers of Babylon and Chadar and every river in the Bible has something specific, something special connected with it. There’s a spiritual identity connected with it.

“Rivers are used to represent spiritual truth. Psalm 1 says the godly man ‘shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.’

“One of the things a river does in the Bible is help a godly man produce fruit. Well, isn’t that exactly what the Holy Spirit does? He produces ‘the fruit of the Spirit.’

*****

“Hebrews 4:12 tells us ‘the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.’

“When it says it’s powerful, that means it’s energetic; it’s got a transforming, dynamic in its life that will transform you from the inside. It changes your attitudes, which changes your actions. It transforms your heart and renews your mind.

“The word ‘quick’ in the verse means it’s alive, but don’t be so quick to jump over the ‘quick’ concept because the word ‘alive’ means it’s functioning in every part. The Word of God doesn’t function lethargically. It’s not that it functions eventually.

“What’s in view is that it’s in a state of activity. The word 'function' has the idea of being able to respond without hesitation and delay. God’s Word will respond to your faith quickly. It’s alive, and when you believe it, it works!

“It doesn’t take six months to work. It will work the moment you believe it. That’s why it says ‘quick.’ It’ll do it NOW! The part about the ‘quick’ I like is I didn’t have to do anything but believe it and it worked!

“God isn’t waiting on me to do something; He’s just waiting on me to BELIEVE it! The Word becomes the sustaining internal compulsion with the life of Jesus Christ that gives VICTORY.”

“The biblical definition of the word ‘submit’ is ‘to give your heart over to another person’s will. Sub is under. You put yourself under them. You give your heart over to another’s will. That’s the challenge; that’s the dare of love. It’s the dare of faith. And if you dare to do it by faith, because God said to do it, you’ve made the decision based upon the truth of what God’s Word is.”

Upon beds of ivory . . .

(new article tomorrow for certain)

 In Amos 6 the message to the southern kingdom of Judah is, “You see what’s happened in the northern kingdom; now you guys down south--you guys are just lazy, enjoying yourselves, fat and happy. Got your own religion, got your activities. You think everything’s wonderful and you’re not paying attention, because what’s happened up there, you’re doing the same thing they’re doing and judgment’s going to come.”

Talking to the leaders of Israel, verse 1 reads, [1] Woe to them that are at ease in Zion, and trust in the mountain of Samaria, which are named chief of the nations, to whom the house of Israel came!

“They trusted that there would be a protection they’d have from the Assyrians because of the land of Ephraim there,” explains Richard Jordan.

Verse 2: [2] Pass ye unto Calneh, and see; and from thence go ye to Hamath the great: then go down to Gath of the Philistines: be they better than these kingdoms? or their border greater than your border?

“All those places that he mentions there had been wiped out and God says, ‘Go look at these places and see what I did to them. The Assyrian took them, runs them. You think you’re better than they are? Forget it.’

Verse 3: [3] Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;

“The ‘evil day’ is ‘the day of the Lord’ back in Amos 5:17-19 that looks forward to the last days of the Antichrist.

“When it says ‘ye that put it away,’ what they’re doing there is putting it out of their mind. Not paying any attention to that kind of a thing. They’re just at ease, doing their thing. They’re not going to be interested in it and they’re just going to ignore it, as it were, and that’s going to cause the seat of violence to come.

“The ‘seat of violence’ is going to be the captivity, but it’s also going to be the Antichrist, so you’re seeing both these things kind of working together.

Verse 4: [4] That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;

“You talk about luxury. They’re in the midst of luxury and leisure. They’re not the watchman on the wall; they’ve let their guard down. We’ve studied how they used religion to get rich. Paul said, ‘I’ve profited in the Jews’ religion.’

“The leaders of the nation, instead of leading the nation in godliness, had led them in just making it a profiteering kind of thing and they lie in beds of ivory and stretch themselves upon their couches.

“You’ve seen pictures perhaps of that era where you have a couch you recline on and a bed to lay on. It’s not talking about a bed in a bedroom; it’s talking about the couches and leisurely stretching out. The bed posts and frame are made of ivory.

Amos 3:15: [15] And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the LORD.

“That’s talking about luxury and it’s a reference back to I Kings 7 when Solomon built his house and he built the ivory palace and ivory throne. It was the wealth and the opulence and the glory of it.

“Back in Solomon’s day silver was considered like dirt, rocks. Everything was made out of gold. It was the accumulation of wealth and the leisure that that would bring and when leisure comes in, people forget God.

"It’s, ‘We don’t need God; we’re interested in other things.’ It’s when difficult times come that people start thinking about God. An old preacher Down South used to say, ‘When the money runs out people get real basic,’ and that’s a dying truth.

“The leaders accumulated their wealth illegally. Amos 3:10: [10] For they know not to do right, saith the LORD, who store up violence and robbery in their palaces.
[11] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; An adversary there shall be even round about the land; and he shall bring down thy strength from thee, and thy palaces shall be spoiled.
[12] Thus saith the LORD; As the shepherd taketh out of the mouth of the lion two legs, or a piece of an ear; so shall the children of Israel be taken out that dwell in Samaria in the corner of a bed, and in Damascus in a couch.

“They’d used the government and the system. They were having a battle back and forth and the issue was the rich were getting richer and the poor were getting poorer, and the more they did it the richer they got, the more leisure they had, the more they oppressed the poor.

“I don’t care what system you’re using (capitalism, socialism, fascism, etc.), the guy in the middle is going to be the one who pays the bills. The rich and poor have a very small tax burden and the people in the middle don’t have a way to get out of the tax burden.

“Here are the people who are designed to be the chief of all the nations, God’s nation in the earth, the ones the others come to, and He says, ‘Here’s some advice. Go out and look at all these other nations—Calneh, Gath—what happened to them? They got destroyed.’

“The verse says they ‘eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall.’ I mean, you’re going and picking the plumbs right out of the middle. You’re getting the fatted ones; you’re getting the best, eating the heart out of everything.

Verse 5: [5] That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;
[6] That drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments: but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.

“He says, ‘You guys Down South, you see what’s happening up north and it doesn’t bother you at all. You’re not grieved for it.’

“Now the afflictions of Joseph, if you go to Genesis 35, what did Joseph’s brothers do to him? They sold him into slavery; into captivity. The northern kingdom is fixing to be sold into captivity and the southern kingdom sees it and they’re just so caught up in their own selves they don’t grieve.

Verse 7: [7] Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.

“He’s not just going to give up Israel, the northern kingdom. There’s going to be a captivity of the southern kingdom and Amos is warning ALL of the tribes of Israel, ‘Captivity’s coming.’ He told them in chapter 5 if they were to hate evil and love the good, and establish judgment in the gate, it may be that the Lord God would be gracious.

“He’ll produce a remnant if they believe and there always was that Believing Remnant. Elijah thought he was the only one who didn’t bow a knee to Baal in his generation and God said, ‘No, I’ve got thousands who haven’t bowed a knee to Baal or kissed Baal and worshipped him.’

“Elijah was the big guy on the scene, in the headlines in the newspaper, on CNN, FOX News and MSNBC. He was making the news and making the rounds, confronting Ahab and Jezebel and all the prophets of Baal and yet he thought he was all by himself.

“I think about that and think, ‘Wow, if there’s thousands of you out here in Israel, how come he didn’t know anything about you?!’ They’re all keeping their heads down; they’re all underground. Because if they stuck their head up, it’s Candy Crunch time. Whack-a-mole. And they lose their life. Elijah was out front but they were there; the ministry had an impact.

“The problem is they weren’t caring anything about that. They weren’t going to repent; they weren’t going to call evil evil and love good. That’s how they got the leisure they had.

Amos 6: [7] Therefore now shall they go captive with the first that go captive, and the banquet of them that stretched themselves shall be removed.
[8] The Lord GOD hath sworn by himself, saith the LORD the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.
[9] And it shall come to pass, if there remain ten men in one house, that they shall die.

“Verse 7 is a reference to the captivity back in Amos 5:7 but it’s also called the day of the Lord in Amos 5:18: [18] Woe unto you that desire the day of the LORD! to what end is it for you? the day of the LORD is darkness, and not light.
[19] As if a man did flee from a lion, and a bear met him; or went into the house, and leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him.

“The captivity begins the day of the Lord’s wrath on the nation. When God puts Israel in that 5^th Course of judgment that is the day of the Lord beginning and that’s the day of violence. They guy of violence who comes in on Judah here, the seat of violence, will be Nebuchadnezzar.

“In Jeremiah 52, Jeremiah looks toward Nebuchadnezzar coming in and gives you the historical record to the seat of violence.

[9] Then they took the king, and carried him up unto the king of Babylon to Riblah in the land of Hamath; where he gave judgment upon him.
[10] And the king of Babylon slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes: he slew also all the princes of Judah in Riblah.
[11] Then he put out the eyes of Zedekiah; and the king of Babylon bound him in chains, and carried him to Babylon, and put him in prison till the day of his death.

“Zedekiah is the last king of Israel and his boys are murdered right in front of him. The last thing he saw was his boys being tortured and slain in front of him. He has his eyes taken out, then he’s put in chains, hauled off down to Babylon, put in jail and left to languish there until he dies.

“Now that’s violence! You see stuff going on in the Middle East with Isis and what they’re doing is nothing new to them. That culture, the Persians, has been doing that for 2-4,000 years. That’s who the Babylonians are. They’re brutal; just murderous.

“That’s that stuff in Genesis 6 about the violence. That thing in Ezekiel 28 about Satan and the violence that comes in the train of his idea. The Lie program always produces evil and the evil that Romans 13 says the powers-that-be are established to stop is that violence that comes from that corrupted system.

“Here’s going to come a man of sin, the son of perdition, who will be the personification of that system and it’s called the ‘seat of violence.’ The place where violence rules from. Babylon is a foretaste of the prophetic guy they’re talking about.

Psalm 94: [1] O LORD God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.
[2] Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.
[3] LORD, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?
[4] How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?
[5] They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.
[6] They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.
[7] Yet they say, The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.

The Believing Remnant is crying out, ‘Lord, you see all the violence, all the trashing that’s being done against us. And because you don’t do anything, the wicked say, [There’s no God to see it. Our god reigns.]’

Verse 20: [20] Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with thee, which frameth mischief by a law?
[21] They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous, and condemn the innocent blood.
[22] But the LORD is my defence; and my God is the rock of my refuge.
[23] And he shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.

“Who sets up a law? You see they’ve taken over the governmental system and they’re using the government and the powers of the state, mixed with their religion . . . that’s the reason our Founding Fathers understood some of these things. I’ve tried to say to you, your ancestors understood that Baal worship stuff and that’s the reason you have a First Amendment.

“Our forefathers understood the dangers of allowing the state to be controlled by a religious institution. That’s what Catholicism is. The pope wears two keys—one for the kingdom of heaven and one for the kingdom of God--and for time immemorial to the time of the Reformation, the pope in Rome ran the governments and the kingdoms of Europe. He would today if he could get away with it.

“The Vatican is a state. They have an ambassador to the U.N. President Ronald Reagan, of all people, appointed an ambassador from the U.S. to the Vatican. You see there’s a political side and a religious side?”

Noise of war in the camp

From Wikipedia:

"Supernova Sukkot Gathering was a weekend-long outdoor trance music festival that began on 6 October 2023^[16][17] and was produced by an organizer called Nova^[18][8] (also referred to as Tribe of Nova).^[19] It was the Israeli edition (pre-festival event) of Universo Paralello, a psytrance festival started 23 years prior in Bahia, Brazil.^[17] It took place in the western Negev desert,^[8] approximately 5 km (3.1 mi) from the Gaza–Israel barrier, near kibbutz Re'im.^[6][18] The line-up included artists well-known in the psytrance scene, such as Astral Projection and Man With No Name.^[17] "

*****

Amos 5: [25] Have ye offered unto me sacrifices and offerings in the wilderness forty years, O house of Israel?

[26] But ye have borne the tabernacle of your Moloch and Chiun your images, the star of your god, which ye made to yourselves.

"They said they were offering the sacrifices to God, but He responded, 'Were you really doing it to me? You did all the rites and rituals I gave you to do through Moses, but look what you were doing!'

"You guys went out and took the Baal worship and that was what was really in Israel's heart," explains Richard Jordan. "They were professing to worship God, but in reality they're denying Him by worshipping a false religion. The class of people doing that were the ones leading the nation.

"Here's the people that were in that era in Amos 6:

[3] Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near;
[4] That lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall;
[5] That chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of musick, like David;

"Now, that's a fascinating verse. Look back at chapter 5:

[21] I hate, I despise your feast days, and I will not smell in your solemn assemblies.
[22] Though ye offer me burnt offerings and your meat offerings, I will not accept them: neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts.
[23] Take thou away from me the noise of thy songs; for I will not hear the melody of thy viols.

"They're singing but their music is just noise. We looked at that passage back in Exodus 32 where they hear the 'noise of war in the camp' and it was really music and they were dancing. They were literally worshipping around the golden calf with dance music.

"It says they 'chant to the sound of the viol.' Chants are things you repeat over and over and over and over and over again. They're a very common thing in religion. When you hear about people meditating and that kind of thing, there are the chants and things they recite over and over again. Liturgy kind of things. 

"It says they 'invent to themselves instruments of music like David.' That's just pure hypocrisy. They're saying, 'We're doing what David did,' but they're not doing anything of the kind. 

I Chronicles 23:5: [5] Moreover four thousand were porters; and four thousand praised the LORD with the instruments which I made, said David, to praise therewith.

"When David made instruments of music, what did he make them for? To praise the Lord with. David understood the power of music; he understood how effective music can be.

"David, by the way, was a great musician. As a young man on the hills of Israel tending his dad's sheep he learned to be a musician and he had a tremendous skill in it. 

I Samuel 16:

[15] And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.
[16] Let our lord now command thy servants, which are before thee, to seek out a man, who is a cunning player on an harp: and it shall come to pass, when the evil spirit from God is upon thee, that he shall play with his hand, and thou shalt be well.
[17] And Saul said unto his servants, Provide me now a man that can play well, and bring him to me.
[18] Then answered one of the servants, and said, Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person, and the LORD is with him.
[19] Wherefore Saul sent messengers unto Jesse, and said, Send me David thy son, which is with the sheep.

"Notice, David understood that he could accomplish some things with his playing. He had a reputation as somebody who knew how to use music to get things done.

"Saul's having one of his fits and David plays with his hands and the result is that Saul's soul was refreshed. There was an emotional, mental impact and it was well--there was a physical impact. The evil spirit departed, which was the spiritual impact. He was affected in his spirit, soul and body.

"Music is designed to affect you in your spirit, soul and body, and if you're not careful, you see music can duplicate and counterfeit the work of God the Holy Spirit.

"What the Holy Spirit is designed to do by taking His Word and working in your heart and your spirit, music can do too. David understood that, so David made instruments.

I Chronicles 16: [42] And with them Heman and Jeduthun with trumpets and cymbals for those that should make a sound, and with musical instruments of God. And the sons of Jeduthun were porters.

"I want you to see there that 'musical instruments of God.' Now, compare that verse to Genesis 4, when Moses describes the development of mankind before the Flood; the society developed by Adam's descendants prior to the Flood that resulted in the violence that took over the earth.

"One of Cain's descendants is described in verse 21: [21] And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.

"What Jubal did is he took their leisure time to develop the arts and entertainment, and what they were doing was covering over, putting a veneer on the rebellious culture. They were living in complete rebellion against what God gave them to do.

"God told them to scatter, and they were doing exactly what the people were doing in Genesis 11, living contrary to the way God instructed them to live and involved in that, they developed this cultural sophistication to say, 'Look at how good what we're doing is!'

"They developed musical instruments and musical arrangements and so forth in order to accomplish what they wanted to do.

"David, when he invented musical instruments, he was doing it for a godly purpose. A trumpet, viol, or harp as instruments are neutral; it' what you do with it and how you use it that's the issue and David understood that.

"These people said, 'We're doing what David did! We're praising God, Hallelujah!' Notice that verse in Amos 6 says they 'invent to themselves instruments of music.' That's Genesis 4:21.

"They were out just satisfying their own selves. Religion is designed to satisfy the lust of your flesh and there's no place your flesh gets more gratification instantly in your spirit, soul and body than in music. It's one of the two or three most dangerous things that happens in your life and in your family's life."

With Spring coming like a freight train

(well, sure enough, I haven't finished new article so I will have to post tomorrow now)

"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.”

*****

“If I told you today, ‘I’m going to send you to a remote island all by yourself and you’re not going to see anybody for 10 years, and I want you to study God’s Word,’ what books would you take with you as study aids?

“First thing I would do is take a King James Bible, an English dictionary, a concordance, Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge. Maybe you’d take a bible dictionary, take a commentary or two. Take a 1611 Bible. Take a Strong’s Concordance.

“Do you realize a Strong’s Concordance was first published in 1890? It was the first English concordance. In 1885, if you wanted to find a verse, you had to remember where it was. You ever do that? ‘I know that verse’s in there somewhere; where’s it at?’

“Now you don’t even own a concordance anymore because the Bible app you got on your stupid phone is hooked into it. Do you understand you are a privileged group of people that in church history didn’t exist?!

*****

“That last wintertime era is the one that gave birth to what we know as the ‘the grace movement.’ J.C. O’Hair became pastor of North Shore Church in 1924. He died in 1958 as pastor of the church. The heyday of the ‘Grace Movement’ as we’ve come to understand it was there. The big names you hear—C.R. Stam, Charles Baker and O’Hair—that’s their era.

“Now, I’m no J.C. O’Hair and you’re no Stam or Baker, but we don’t need to be. All we need to be is who we are. We just need to be where we are taking advantage of who we are to the fullest—to be for this season who it will need us to be.

*****

“Every springtime in this country has had a spiritual awakening. That’s the cycle in Anglo-American history in which the Reformation took place. The first reformation was a recovery of Pauline truth.

"The next great awakening was the Puritan awakening. The era of the Puritans, in the first quarter of the 1600s, produced the King James Bible. The fruit and on the vine. It’s the era of tremendous, wonderful activity in America. Jonathan Edwards and the great New England revivals changed the course of America—justification by grace through faith.

“The next great awakening in the 1800s was led by Charles Finney and had to do with the doctrines of identity. The next great awakening was the one that led into dispensational understanding.

"The fourth great awakening, in the 1960s, was called in history the ‘Conscience Revolution’ and it’s the first awakening in American history that wasn’t based on Bible. It was a New Age awakening. Historians call our world today 'post-Christian'.

“Today you’re involved in ministering to the first generations in American history that didn’t have some basic spiritual consensus or underpinnings that pointed them at least in the right direction."

85% of Bible's 13s are negative

(here's a short piece and will have a longer article tomorrow for certain)

Revelation 17:5: [5] And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

"That's the satanic policy of evil connected with the Antichrist being destroyed. In that verse there are 13 words and 65 letters. Sixty-five is five times 13.

"In the Bible, 85 percent of the 'thirteens' are negative. This woman is called in Jeremiah 44 the "queen of heaven." There are 13 letters in the title. If you go back to Genesis 13, which is one of these first occurrences verses, it says in verse 13: [13] But the men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the LORD exceedingly.

"There are 13 words in that verse. Talking about Sodom, you see the words 'wicked' and 'sinners.' That's the first time those two words occur in the Bible. You add up the letters between those two words and there are 13. Sodom and Gomorrah (13 letters between the two names) is destroyed in chapter 19 with 'fire and brimstone.' There are 13 letters in those two words.

"This is all gets connected. The greatest handbook on symbolism and signs in the world is that Book. Let me read you just part of a long list I came up with where there are 13 letters. Roman Catholic. The colors over in Revelation 16 are 'purple' and 'scarlet' (13 letters between the two).

"Christmas tree, Easter egg hunt, Saint Nicholas, King of Babylon, the Golden City, the Antichrist, false brethren, false teachers, false prophets, false apostles, Baal and Ashteroth, false doctrine, false religion, Judas Iscariot, Prince of Tyrus, unclean spirits, bottomless pit, Jacob's trouble.

*****

Acts 17: [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.

"Right in the middle of that you've got your block caps. Here's this idolatrous city engaged in the religious devotions, and Paul says, 'You're superstitious and you're ignorant.' Paul declares the true God to them but where were they? Off in the high weeds. Where does the satanic policy of evil lead you? To where you don't know who God is."

Real Jews Under attack

(sorry for delay in new article--i had a very mentally stressful set of events happen in a row that really "tried to take me down" as they say)

 I was in my mid-30s living in Manhattan when I first learned from a friend (who split his time between New York City and a seaside home in Tel Aviv) that Israelis who believe in a coming Messiah are ridiculed and mocked by the populace.

“The few devout Jews who still believe in a future coming of a personal Messiah are labeled as ‘ultra-orthodox’ and are dismissed as being ignorant, pompous, superstitious and unenlightened, by, you guessed it, their own people, i.e., the Jewish Community!” confirms Bible teacher and missionary R. Dawson in his 2005 book, The Apostasy of the Christian Church.

Joseph Perl, a leader of the Jewish Enlightenment in the early 1800s, once assured, “The truly educated Jews by no means picture the Messiah as a real personality. They see him only as a symbol of ideas of the redemption of Israel and of universal peace which await their realization when Israel, freed from all oppression, will be accepted into the family of nations.”

In the late 1800s, German Rationalism produced the Graf-Wellhausen theory that concluded Moses was a dumb caveman who didn’t even know how to write.

The doctrine claimed the Pentateuch was really written by four different men much later than Moses, and gave them the impersonal titles of J, E, P and D.

J stood for the Jehovah passages, P for the Levitical priesthood passages, E for where it talks about Christ as Elohim and D for the Deuteronomic passages.

*****

Psalm 91 starts with, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.
[2] I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.”

“If you go back and read Deuteronomy 32 and 33, and then read this psalm, as well as the one before it, you’ll see phrase and concept after phrase and concept in Deuteronomy 32 and 33 that show up again in Psalm 90 and 91, indicating Moses wrote the two of them,” says Richard Jordan.

“By the way, Deuteronomy 32 and 33 is, in the writings of Moses, sort of like what Romans 6 is in the writings of Paul. Romans 6 is a key passage in the Christian life and, well, Deuteronomy 32 and 33 could be called the national anthem of the nation Israel.

“So, just like the burning bush is the real symbol of the nation Israel (instead of the pagan Star of David, which is really the evil Star of Moloch in Amos 5), if the nation Israel wanted a Bible national anthem, it would be the song Moses sings in Deuteronomy 32 and 33 because that song rehearses the whole of their history.

"It gives their history prophetically all the way from the time of Moses right to the time of Christ—the first coming, the tribulation and the Second Coming.

“When you look at Psalm 90 and 91, much of the stuff drawn from those passages gives the reader the immediate understanding that, ‘Hey, these psalms have to do with Israel in the last days’; not just Israel in David’s day, or Moses’ day, as in this case, but Israel in the purpose and plan of God ultimately.”

*****

In Exodus 17:14, “the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.”

Jordan explains, “God’s saying, ‘Mo, I want you to write a book.’ That’s why we are ‘people of a book.’ If you take the book away, you take us away. Notice it’s God’s idea, not Moses’.

“The church I was raised in laughed and said Moses couldn’t write: ‘Don'tchaknow, back in those days they were all demented.’ You know, carry around a club on their shoulders. Living in caves. You know, meet some gal on the way, bop her on the head and drag her home and make her cook for ya.

“You ever read Acts 7 when Stephen talked about Moses and said he was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians? I mean, have you ever looked at the Egyptians? The culture he lived in? He could get up in the morning and look out at the Pyramids!

“Well, mercy, people today can’t even figure out how they built them! Come to Chicago and go to the Field Museum of natural history and my favorite exhibit there is down in the basement in the Egyptian room. It’s full of mummies and they’ve got this little woman in a little sarcophagus and they’ve got some of the remnants peeled back and this is 3,000 B.C. and she looks pretty good. A little leathery, but her features are there. She’s all there.

“I’ve been involved with the exhuming of bodies in the past and you know what, with all the modern techniques of embalming, you don’t look so good after 10 years. Honest, you don’t! Give yourself 30 years in that hermetically sealed environment in the coffin and you’ll look even worse. You know why? The bacteria that produces decomposition works in that hermetically sealed environment.

“God’s Word, as it was written down, was not written down to be a family history. It wasn’t a journal or a diary. It wasn’t national archives; it was God telling Moses and others to write His Word!

*****

“Exodus 24 says, ‘And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel . . .  And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.’

“By the way, they put it in a book. I know what experts say: ‘Well, books weren’t invented back then!’ What are you talking about?! Think about who invented books! They say, ‘Well, they had to roll a scroll,’ like dealing with toilet paper or something.

“Well, how would you study something rolled out like that? You couldn’t study it. How could you do what we’re doing right now and cross-reference that?  You know who invented books? People who studied because that’s why you have a book like that.

*****

“Exodus 34:27-28 says, ‘And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
[28] And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.’

“Notice he writes the words on a table. This is where Moses is REPRODUCING. Deuteronomy 31:24  says, ‘And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished.’

“Here Moses is finishing Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus Numbers and Deuteronomy. He’s writing the words.

Notice it says ‘writing the words of this law in a book.’ A book. There’s a verse in Joshua that talks about THE book. One book! But it’s really got five parts in it. It’s one book because it’s got one author, but it’s got a bunch of sections.”

(new article tomorrow)

Their memorial

“A man once wrote a list of 33 names in the Bible that are applicable to the Antichrist. There’s more in the Bible about the Antichrist than anybody else except for the Lord Jesus Christ.

“As ‘the foolish shepherd’ and ‘the idol shepherd’, as ‘the man of sin’ and ‘the son of perdition’, he’s literally the personification of Satan’s program and that’s why he’s called ‘the wicked one’.

“There are whole chapters in the Book of Job about him, and in the Book of Psalms he’s described in very clear terms," explains Richard Jordan.

“People love the psalms. At a funeral, Psalm 23 is often used at the graveside. When you use it in an allegorical sense—'The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want’—it is a psalm you understand gives comfort to a lot of people. It’s like the song Amazing Grace.

“Every drunk in an AA Meeting can sing that song. That song doesn’t tell you anything about Jesus Christ, or the gospel, or heaven and hell. It just talks about, ‘I’ve been knocked down, but by the grace of God I’m up and I’m going again.’

“You’ll see it every time there’s a big funeral in the national cathedral. Some big opera singer gets up and sings Amazing Grace. They don’t sing all the verses, though: ‘The Lord has promised good to me,
His Word my hope secures;
He will my Shield and Portion be,
As long as life endures.’

“What you get in the Book of Psalms is a look into the heart of the Believing Remnant as they matriculate through the Fifth Course of Judgment, and especially the very end of it. It’s, ‘Here’s the remnant suffering under the heel of the oppressor and they look to the Lord to deliver them.’

“There are doctrines designed to give the believing remnant an internal capacity and fortitude to get through. Now they’re going to have to face this wicked one.

“When you trace through the psalms, there are probably 30-35 of them that directly address this character, and Psalm 10 is the first place he’s called the wicked and this psalm sort of sets the pace for what you’re going to read and learn about him.

Psalm 9: [5] Thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever.
[6] O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end: and thou hast destroyed cities; their memorial is perished with them.

“There you have the wicked, who are Israel’s enemies, and they’ve got a memorial to themselves. You know what the memorial is—it’s Revelation 13. They’ve got an image made to the wicked one.

Psalm 9:16-17: [16] The LORD is known by the judgment which he executeth: the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion. Selah.
[17] The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.

That’s what’s going to happen to them. The psalm ends with the Second Coming: [19] Arise, O LORD; let not man prevail: let the heathen be judged in thy sight.
[20] Put them in fear, O LORD: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.

Psalm 10, a whole psalm dedicated to the Antichrist, says, [7] His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and fraud: under his tongue is mischief and vanity.

[8] He sitteth in the lurking places of the villages: in the secret places doth he murder the innocent: his eyes are privily set against the poor.

[9] He lieth in wait secretly as a lion in his den: he lieth in wait to catch the poor: he doth catch the poor, when he draweth him into his net.

[10] He croucheth, and humbleth himself, that the poor may fall by his strong ones.

Verse 2 says, "The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor: let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined."

“Dozens of times through the minor prophets the text will refer to the poor, but it’s not talking about some folks on Lower Wacker living in a cardboard box. It's a specific reference to a specific group of people at a specific time.

“Jesus said, ‘The poor you have with you always.’ Well, that’s a truism in the sense it’s the common lot of mankind, but these poor result from the persecution in the time of Jacob’s trouble.

"If you don’t take ‘the mark of the beast’ what happens to you? You can’t buy, you can’t sell. You can’t own property; you can’t divest yourself of property.

“The kings are literally going to take the wealth from the people in the nations they control and make them poor. They’re going to use Israel and the Gentiles in those nations and suck the wealth out through corrupt money, corrupt government, corrupt policies.

"The wicked one’s going to oppress the poor; going to persecute the Believing Remnant and let them be taken in the devices they have imagined.

“Now, Psalm 10:3 explains why the Antichrist’s called the ‘foolish shepherd’: [3] For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth.

“It’s the greed that’s driving him; the will to be rich. If you go to Ezekiel 28, you’ll see that when Satan starts out, that prince of Tyre and king of Tyre is the man of sin and the son of perdition, and the whole object there is to get rich."

Tyndale and more Tyndale

(new article tomorrow)

Here is outtake from the study by Michigan preacher Bryan Ross given at my church's summer Bible conference in Chicago:

"The King James Bible is what it claims to be on the title page. In the dedicatory epistle to the king, reading the bolded part only, it says: 'Out of the original sacred tongues, together with comparing of labors, both in our own and other foreign languages, of many worthy men who went before us, that there should be one more exact translation of the Holy Scriptures into the English tongue."

"So did they do exactly what it says? Did they start with the Bishops' Bible and compare it to the Greek? Then they say, 'Does one of these English bibles here better capture the Greek than the Bishops'? If they say, 'Yes,' they change it. If they say 'No,' then they do their own translation. So, rule one was followed.

"If you take that 1602 Bishops' Bible and that 1611 King James, 91 percent of it is the same.

"Here's what you're thinking? 'Isn't the King James Bible 91 percent William Tyndale?' Hasn't everybody always said that? Yes, but why?

"The King James Bible is a revision of the Bishops' Bible, which came from a revision of the Great Bible. Anglican bishops sat down in 1568 and they revised the Great Bible that created the Bishops' Bible. The Great Bible was a revision of the Matthew Bible (1537) done by Miles Coverdale.

"I'm telling you, the most overlooked, understudied and underappreciated Bible in this whole thing is the Matthew Bible. Here's why. The Matthew Bible, published by John Rogers, was the complete work of William Tyndale. It is two-thirds the work of Tyndale.

"John Rogers was friends with Tyndale. When they arrested Tyndale and were going to put him to death, Tyndale bequeathed to Rogers all of his unpublished translations of parts of the Old Testament that had not been published yet.

"So when John Rogers now does the Matthew Bible, he includes all of that heretofore unpublished material from Tyndale into the Matthew Bible. 

"What ends up happening is when the king decides that he wants a Bible, and he commissions Coverdale to make one in 1539, Coverdale revises the Matthew, which is two-thirds Tyndale.

"Wait a minute! Didn't the king just burn Tyndale? And now he's authorizing a Bible that's two-thirds Tyndale and he doesn't even know it!

"How is it that the King James Bible is 90 percent William Tyndale? Because of where it came from. It is 91 percent Bishops' while being 90 percent Tyndale because they are all revisions coming from the same what? Same source."

Profiting in meditation

In his podcast earlier this week, Joel Hayes, an associate pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Orlando, Fla., reinforced with my pastor, who was his guest, that the many young men today who are so on-fire with learning the grace message and getting it out, needed to take time also just to meditate on God's Word.

It reminded me of this outtake from an old sermon by my pastor, Richard Jordan:

"We were at the summer Bible camp in the mountains of southern California, and when the morning meetings were through some people asked what me what I planned to do with the afternoon. When I said, 'Nothing,' they responded, 'What, you can't do that!' I said, 'Why not?'

They said, 'Well, we're up here to relax!' I said, 'That's what I intend to do.' That's how I relax; I do nothing.

"I watch these young people come up from the city and they traipse bicycles 400 miles into the mountains so that they can ride bikes. It's beautiful country but I mean, you work so hard to get the blooming stuff up there that you're wore out by the time you've got it off to use.

"I said to one of the men, 'Isn't it interesting that some just have to be going and doing and pushing and driving to just relax.'

"The idea that you could sit around and do nothing and relax--I mean, I was raised different. As a little boy in the rural South, how often I could remember my mom and dad sitting on the front porch in the Spring watching the neighbors go up and down the street.

"You ever do that? Some of you have probably never even thought of doing that. My folks would just sit and watch the evening go by and people say today, 'Well, you're just killing time,' Well, they didn't have near as many hang-ups as some of us do.

Here's an outtake from a study Hayes gave over a week ago:

"Webster's Dictionary says that study is literally a setting of the mind or thoughts upon a subject. This is the application of the mind to books or to any subject for the purpose of learning what is not before known. Study is attention and meditation given to a subject. Study includes meditation. Don't forget that.

I Timothy 4:15: [15] Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.

"Timothy was to meditate upon all that Paul had written to him. He was to give himself wholly to the writings of Paul. Why? So that his profiting may appear to all.

"He was to be occupied with those thoughts and make them his chief concern; he was to be absorbed in all the thoughts Paul had written.

"Timothy's meditation on the writings of Paul would bring him personal profit. His inner man would be strengthened by that word. He might have a new level of joy. Maybe he was a little more loving through the knowledge he gained. His life is somehow enriched even further and enhanced because he spent that time thinking about God's Word.

"His own personal profit from those meditations of Scripture would be apparent to everyone around him. God designed His Word for you to meditate upon it, which will be profitable to you if you just give it a shot. 

"We already did a deep dive into meditation and you remember that to meditate is to dwell on anything in your mind. To contemplate, to think, to turn over or revolve concepts in your mind.

"The result is that your thinking has changed; you're thinking is more like Christ's thinking. Your attitude is more like Christ's. Your emotional life is more like His. You more spiritually strengthened; you're more confident in your walk as an ambassador."

7 billion to hear history

(still working on new article--will post tomorrow for certain)

"The Book of Revelation is a book marked by the number seven. The No. 7 is a number of perfection. The Book of Revelation is filled with cycles of seven,

"There are seven churches in chapters 2 and 3. There are seven spirits, seven golden candlesticks, seven stars, seven lamps, seven seals, seven horns, seven eyes, seven angels, seven trumpets, seven thunders, seven heads, seven crowns, seven last plagues, seven golden vials, seven mountains, seven kings. You go on and on with these groupings of sevens," explains Richard Jordan.

"When history comes to an end, the culmination will be of the perfection that God designs. Years ago, I heard that the word history literally can be divided and made to be HIS STORY. The guy who said that was a professor of mine at Mobile College teaching a western civilization class. He said the 'his' was man's story and I thought, 'Who'd want to remember your story or my story? It's God's story that makes an account.'

"I'll tell you, 500 years from now . . . you know, when you get to thinking you're somebody, you know what you need to remember? Do you know that at the height of your glory there are 7 billion people on this planet who never heard your name? There are all kind of ways to keep yourself humble and that's one of them.

"With the Book of Revelation you want to find the things that help you understand it. To me, understanding that the Book of Revelation mirrors back and completes; it's like Genesis throws the ball and Revelation catches it.

"What you want to remember in history is not my story, or your story, or somebody else's story; you know, 'This guy was a great guy.' It's, 'What's going to count in history is going to be what God did and what He IS doing and what's going to come to fulfillment and fruition.'

*****

"You just keep reading and noticing phenomena, and after 40-plus years of studying a King James Bible and noticing this kind of phenomena over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it kind of gets under your skin.

“It kind of gets beyond just being, ‘Well, that’s superstition.’ The people who think it’s superstition are people who just haven’t studied it very much and seen it work out over and over.

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

***** 

Answer: Numbers

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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