Ultimate ground for ALL of our being

With my window cracked open in my bedroom in the front corner of the house (trying to keep in the air-conditioning) I am currently hearing the most blissful cacophony of fireworks going off from every conceivable direction.

We live at the top of a hill in a hilly neighborhood in what's called the Miami Valley (named after the Miami River in southern Ohio) and it's amazing how the sound travels.

Fireworks are being letting off in rounds in an unimpeded fashion from seemingly innumerable sources. One of the best "sound shows" you'll ever hear if you ask me, and I know this will keep up well into the wee hours of the morning to my utter delight.

It reminds me of when I lived smack-dab on the lakefront in Chicago in Hollywood Beach (corner of Sheridan and Ardmore) on the 18th floor of the high-rise Beach Point Condominiums with my roommate Judi Gootjes, a native of Bryan, Ohio. 

We could see the firecrackers light up the sky in an incessant fashion that went from sunset into the wee hours of the 4th of July and then again on that eve of the holiday. I swear it's the most gorgeous treat for the ears, the eyes and heart.

The world seems 100 percent okay even though we are heading into the worst period of our country's history. That's what I'm convinced of anyway.

*****

NEWS ALERT: "World News Tonight" anchor David Muir kicked off ABC News' celebration of America's 250th birthday by climbing up through Lady Liberty's right arm to reach the torch, standing over 300 feet in the air."

*****

Here is what I posted on July 4th of last year when I really thought we were on the edge of terrible times (I've since learned to calm down in the midst of my pessimism about our future) and promise to have new article tomorrow (I've got to get through one more day tomorrow at work and then I'm going to ask to go part-time when I return on Wednesday):

God is all-powerful; He is the Creator. But He can create and He can also delegate. He can give His power to others for them to operate.

If you know anything about delegated power, you know that’s a very threatening thing because, you know, you have micro-managers that want to control everything and macro-managers that just tell you, “Here’s the goal—go get it.”

When God created all things, Colossians 1:16 says, [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

He created positions to whom He delegated authority to work and have the “powers that be” be ordained of God, explains Richard Jordan.

What delegating His authority means is He’s willing to share of Himself with others. When you think about God as a triune God, sometimes we just think, “He’s trinity, holy, holy, holy, big deal.”

You need to understand how important it is; we’re not just monotheistic, believing in one God. It’s not enough to say I believe in God; Satan’s the “god of this world.” You might be believing in the wrong one.

You need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can’t even believe in “christ” because the devil is a christ in Ezekiel 28. You need to believe in the Lord’s Christ.

The trinity is the demonstration of the trustworthiness of the godhead. If there was only one person in the godhead and He said, “This is it and it’s it because I said so,” how would you know He’s right and you could trust Him?

Do you just take one person’s word for anything? It would be an arbitrary statement. If somebody said it and another person witnessed it and said, “Yep, that’s what He said and He’s pretty consistent,” you’d question him because you’d wonder, “Well, are you all?”

But if you had a third person, these three people in the godhead have lived together forever. They’ve seen everything the other one has done. And they can testify of the integrity of the other members of the godhead.

That’s a good thing when you think about it. When one member of the godhead said something, you can trust it because you’ve got two eternal witnesses to tell you, “He’s never said something wrong. He’s always spoken out of His goodness. He’s always been a lover. Love works no ill toward his neighbor. You can trust Him.”

It’s not an independent statement; it’s an eternal witness. That’s why Jesus said, “If I testify of myself my witness isn’t true, but I’ve got others to testify of me.”

So. in the triune God you’ve got the godhead, and you know what every member of the godhead does? They all live for each other. The Father lives to exalt the Son, the Son lives to exalt the Father and the Spirit lives to exalt the Son. Every one of them exalts the other; they all live spontaneously for one another.

So the life of God is not lived to see what I can get out of it. God’s life is to give to others! That’s the way God’s life operates.

So when you talk about His omnipotence, it’s not, “Get all I can and can all I get.” You see, He has power to share His life.

Here’s the godhead and you think, “Why in the world would they have made creation?” Because they want to take this life that they have and spread it out—they want to GIVE it! They’re interested in moving out with it and they have the power to do that. And they have power to delegate because God is love.

If we’re the church of the living God it’s because we have a personal relationship with Him and He’s good because He’s loving.

*****

The Bible is considered the greatest love story ever written because it is all about real people choosing to be in a real love relationship with the Creator of the universe--the one who says of Himself, "God is love."

For those who believe the Book includes fables, concocted characters and made-up allegories written by men, there's nothing really real about their love.

A best-selling Christian memoir from the past includes this passage: “With our own love stories, every detail comes alive. Our own love stories are so poignant, so detailed, so unforgettable—at least to us. When it’s someone else’s love story, however, we will be polite and listen, but usually it’s entirely forgettable. It’s like looking at someone else’s vacation pictures. When I have skin in the game, the outcome all of a sudden matters to me and I become engaged.”

*****

Believers are in a special type of love affair with the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who brings God into EVERY aspect, facet, experience, etc., of life.

I John 4:7 says, “Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” That means if you don’t know God, you don't know how to love people.

When you live in a consciousness of God’s love for you in Christ, it gives you an insight. You’ve got the information, and when you believe it, it becomes the energy, the life, the transforming power down in your soul that His life then works out through you.

It’s a love that abounds in knowledge and in judgment. It’s a mental-attitude love. It’s the capacity to look at a thing and value and esteem it the way God does.

At a Bible conference once I was asked during the Q&A session, “What do you find the most exciting subject in the Bible?”

For me personally it’s to stand back and look at who the Bible says Jesus Christ is and appreciate the fact that I’m in Him and that I’m complete in Him. He is the source of all my blessings, and the source of my true, real identity, and He's the one I have all my status in.

You see, the thing that's so wonderful about the grace of God is that it makes Jesus Christ everything! And the Bible says that it pleased the Father that in Him should "all fullness dwell.” If you asked God the Father what is to Him the most exciting subject in all the universe, He'd say, “My Son.”

Any way you slice it, dice it, look at it, think about it, take it apart, put it together, Jesus Christ is the apple of the Father's eye, as Psalm 17 tells us. He's the thing that causes the Father's heart to rejoice. He's the one.

It's mind-boggling when you look at who the Scripture says He is. It sort of numbs your mind. It's so big, you can just never get your arms around it.

*****

When Jesus Christ came back to earth following His death on the Cross, He said to His disciple known as “doubting Thomas,” “Just come and feel me so you know I’m real.”

The reason Christ is called the Word is because He’s the manifest person of the godhead; He's the one who brings God out of the theory—the ether and the unknown—and down into the place where He could actually enter into your experience.

He steps out of eternity where He is and steps into His creation and literally takes it upon Himself. And that’s something my mind doesn't grasp! He literally joins Himself in creation to Him, and in that unique person of all of the universe—the celebrity of all time—He becomes the man Christ Jesus.

When you look at that, you say, “Wow, I understand what Jeremiah's talking about back there when he writes, 'Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee Lord.’ He's saying, 'Man, there's nobody like Him! Nobody!’

You say, “Wow, God, thou art great—who wouldn't fear you?! Who wouldn't bow before you and say, 'You're the man!'?"

After Thomas did as Christ instructed, he cried, “My Lord and my God,”  to which Christ responded, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

When He says, “I'm the Lord, there's none like me,” He's saying, “There isn't any room in my heaven and earth for anybody who says he's me. No room out there. I've been all over creation; I've looked, I've seen; there isn't anybody like me out there.”

When John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” the statement’s saying, “I am the ultimate ground of all being and existence. Without me, there's no existence. Without me there's nothing.”

Paul says in Colossians that “by him all things consist.” In Acts 17, Paul says of God, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” How do you know there's a God? Well, how do you know who you are?!

You see, whatever you call God—whatever you name Him and whoever He is, if He's just that “holy other” that you can't contact and don't know who it is, like the Unknown God of the Athenians, at least you have to recognize there has to be some grounds for existence; some reason to believe you exist. There are great philosophers in the world who don't believe you exist. They believe all of this is an illusion.

By the way, when Jesus said, “I am the truth,” that's what He meant. He wasn't talking about, “I’m just always right and you're always wrong.” He wasn't talking about truth like “two plus two equals four.”

He was talking about truth in the ultimate basic sense of the ultimate ground of ALL of our being and who we are—the essence of our being—and Christ said, “It all resides in me.” Now, there's not a sane person on the planet who would ever claim that!

Independence Day priveleges

Think for a moment on this July 4^th how privileged we are to each have a bible and be able to read and study it. As Paul notes in Ephesians 3, “Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ.”

“Think about how in the time of the Apostle Paul in the Greco-Roman world, the literacy rate had reached a pinnacle in ancient history,” says Richard Jordan. “The Greek world, the Greek philosophers, the Roman world . . . Historians say that the Roman civilization was based on ‘the book and the register.’

“No one, either free or a slave, could afford to be illiterate. The written word was all around them, both in public and private life, through the law, calendars, regulations on shrines, etc. Funeral epitaphs were engraved in stone or bronze. The republic amassed huge archives of reports on every aspect of public life. So people were literate, but when the Roman Empire fell, literacy became a fleeting thing.

“You go into a period called the Dark Ages and during that age, only about 30 percent of the population in Europe could read, and they would be the clergy or the wealthy who had time to do it and teach their kids.

“Now you imagine if you lived in, say, 1,000 A.D. and you couldn’t read that verse in Ephesians because you didn’t have a bible, because bibles back then were all handwritten, and if you had one, you wouldn’t be able to read anyway.

“II Timothy 2:15 says, 15] Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

“The word ‘study’ means ‘the application of the mind to the acquisition of knowledge as by reading, investigation or reflection. To research or a detailed examination and analysis of a subject. To endeavor, to think deeply, to reflect, to consider what God says.’

“Paul says ‘study' and you think, ‘Oh, geez, I need to apply my mind to the acquisition of knowledge by reading, but I can’t read by investigation! I got to go find somebody to read it for me by reflection and thinking deeply.’

“What would you do? Look at you this morning. How many of you don’t have a Bible in your lap? I’ve got a bible on my phone, my tablet, my IPad, my laptop, my desktop.

“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, Treasure of Scripture 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?!

*****

“The printing press was introduced by Guttenberg in 1445. By the way, Guttenberg’s said to have invented the printing press and that’s not true. In 1437, there was a fleet of Chinese vessels that went up into the Mediterranean and delivered to Pope Edmond information from the Chinese emperor, part of which was printed books. The Chinese had developed the printing press long before. They had mapped the circumference of the planet. They developed latitude and longitude.

“That’s the reason the Venetian mapmaker everybody talks about that Columbus might have saw—did he see or didn’t he see?—the map that he got . . . what he did was introduce the printing press. That’s all strange to you, I know, because your history didn’t teach you that.

“In the 14th century when Wycliffe first translated the bible, 80 percent of English adults couldn’t spell their name. In the 15th century, when Gutenberg introduced the printing press, only about 30 percent of European adults were literate.

“By the 17^th century, the number went up to 60 percent. By the 18^th century it was ubiquitous. Did you know in Sweden in the 17^th century, the 1660s along in there, there was 100 percent literacy rate because the church required people to be able to read.  Do you understand you could have lived in an era where you couldn’t read? A lot of us wouldn’t have been able to.

“I wear glasses because I can’t read without them. Did you know the first eyeglasses were introduced in the 1200s? Nero, Seneca, the 1^st century; they were the first people in recorded history talking about magnification, but it wasn’t until the glass-blowing industry got going in the 11^th and 12th centuries that they made ‘looking stones,’ as they called them. The first glass put into frames was in Italy in 1286.

“So if you could get a bible and you could read, but you couldn’t see . . . Paul says in Galatians 6, ‘You see what a large letter I’ve written you.’ He’s not talking about how long it is; Galatians is a short little book. He’s talking about, ‘I wrote this with my own hands and I put it in big letters because I need that to see.’ You see, if you write letters big enough, blind as I am in one eye, you can still see them.

*****

“Do you understand how privileged you are? It ought to humble you to understand . . . I was in Wal-Mart the other day and I bought a KJB with a nice cover on it for $9.99. Until 1450, a bible had to be handwritten.

“Several years ago, a guy in New York handwrote the King James Bible; he wanted to figure out how long it would take him. It took him four years. Now, if you were in Wycliffe’s day in the 14^th century, and you got a Lombard bible that Wycliffe translated into what was English at the time (English just began in the 1300s), you know how he did it? He didn’t have a nice fountain pen with a big reservoir. He had a quill tip and he dipped.

“Before that, they first started writing with chalk. Then they figured out how to add wax and graphite together. Then they had wax and color together—crayons. Before that, they chiseled it into rock. Can you imagine toting a bible like that around?! Well, you couldn’t do it.

“Do you understand how privileged you are, and you stick the thing under your arm, tote it home, throw it on the couch and don’t think about it.

“Now, that guy with a felt-tip pen writes that Bible and it takes him four years. How many quills do you think he went through? Lots. I got this nice pen with a gold tip on it and it will write forever. If it doesn’t, they’ll put me a new one in it. But when you use those bible marking pens, how long do they last? 2-3 months. Why? Because you wear them out. If you had to have a quill, you would have to have a bunch and that’s just to get one copy.

“Paul says, ‘[8] Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ;

“Look at all the privileges you and I have at our disposal that we didn’t do anything to produce. The Body of Christ produced them for us, put them into our hands. We call this the ‘Information Era’ and it really is, but you see it’s that information that people need to hear.

“That ‘humility of mind’ Paul talks about comes from just appreciating what God has provided for us. You and I live in a time where the Body of Christ has produced truth and made it available. There ought to be no other course for your life or for mine than to proclaim God’s truth so that others can hear it.

“How can we just sit on it?! How can we just take our notepad and turn it off and lay it on the couch? That humbleness is about being overwhelmed with the privilege you and I have of possessing God’s Word in our own hands and the tools to study it and investigate it and to look at it and to examine it and analyze it and to think deeply and reflect upon it.

“Paul says, ‘Consider what I say; and the Lord give thee understanding in all things.’ God help us not to just leave it on the table. ‘To whom much is given much is required.’ The thing that changed Paul’s attitude was seeing all the abundance of what God had given for him in Christ.

“The thing that can give you the humility of mind that grace produces is to take a moment and think about all the wonderful privileges God’s given you in your life. I’m not talking about just in Christ; I’m talking about how it’s impacted your LIFE and then let that motivate you.”

Lady luck, as in Big Apple's Statue of Lucifer?!

I am someone who always instinctively, no matter what I have to do on the holiday or what my mental state in general is, goes into a sentimental, relaxed "holiday mood" before an American holiday.

I have actually worked every single major holiday (except for Christmas) since starting my current job at a national grocery chain almost 5 years ago (August 30th is my anniversary) and will be working this 4th of July from 9-5.

One thing I can say is people do get pretty mellow just before a holiday. The mood is decidedly different, as it was just today at my job in spite of the nasty hot weather, etc.

I was taught for as long as I can remember to love my country and everything good about it. This was just a natural part of the life of my parents and grandmother, as well as their close friends who were a big part of my childhood. Without exception they were all full-blown patriotic Americans who cherished being in America.

Here's a recent entry from a YouTuber with the channel "filspixel" (and I don't vouch for his material, especially since I just learned about him through another YouTuber, but the visual facts don't lie):

"With this video you're never going to look at the Statue of Liberty the same way again. Here's a statue called the 'Lucifer of Liege,' made in 1848 (located in St. Paul's Cathedral of Liege in France), formerly entitled 'Le genie du mal,' which translates to 'the genius of evil' and this is exactly why.

"If you try to search out the origin story of the Statue of Liberty it gives us, well, a common history we all know of well, Lady Liberty and NYC.

"The Statue of Liberty is a statue of Lucifer, a fallen angel from heaven comely depicted as the devil who rebelled against God and was banished.

"This statue, the 'Lucifer of Liege,' has some unmistakable details that feel very intentional. So, on the ground, the crown Lucifer is holding has seven points, allegedly symbolizing the seven deadly sins of man.

"Which just so happens to be the exact number of points found on the crown of the Statue of Liberty. Coincidence maybe, but oh, we've only grazed the tip here.

"As you might notice, the Lucifer statue is also chained by the ankle, the symbol of his eternal imprisonment. Surely, the Statue of Liberty, representing, you know, freedom and liberty, has no reason to be imprisoned too now, right?

"Apparently no, because that is exactly what we find at the foot of Lady Liberty. A chain holding her down on the pedestal she stands.

"Liberty is the definition of being free from consignment or forced labor. So it totally makes sense to have a Lady representing liberation to be chained by the ankle like some sort of prisoner. Don't question it now.

"And is this even LADY Liberty?! Just have a closer look at her face and tell me if you see it too. I don't know about you, but the features aren't exactly all that feminine. Here's the face while it was still under construction (between 1875-1884). Here's the face of another statue of an actual lady for comparison.

"Now, this is a famous painting of Lucifer from 1797 (called 'Satan Summoning His Legions') and here's the viral side-by-side comparison with our Lady Liberty and the resemblance is uncanny.

"Never mind a man; she straight up looks like the devil himself, who as the 'Lucifer of Liege' seems to have dropped a torch. Lucifer the name translates from Latin to the "bringer of light." Do I really need to explain that one?

"Even more, beside the scepter at the base of the statue, there's an APPLE almost seemingly at random just sitting there with no context! What is it they call New York City, the host of the Statue of Liberty? The Big what now?! But you know we're probably just reading into things too much as usual.

"With Lucifer also alternatively translating to "morning star," a star being the shape the Statue of Liberty just happens to rest on . . . 

"All very interesting and mildly disturbing connections and coincidences to a figure that is commonly portrayed as the devil, or maybe, you know, we're just being silly. Entertainment purposes only, right? That was quite the brain tickler, wasn't it? 

(Note: You would think the Statue of Lucifer was something unique to the United States, but actually multiple countries, more than 15, have a statue dedicated to Lucifer.)

*****

Here's an article about the Statue of Liberty that I posted on April 14:

For Orthodox Easter yesterday, an AI-generated image was posted to Donald Trump’s Truth Social account depicting him as a Christ-like figure.

“Less than a day later, the image of a man wearing a white robe draped with a red shawl was removed from Trump's social media feed in what appeared to be a rare concession to critics,” reported USA Today. “Trump later said the image was being misconstrued, and that he was depicted as a doctor not Jesus.

“The image showed Trump laying his hand on the forehead of a man who appears to be in a sick bed. A light glows in Trump’s other hand and light shines around the sick man’s head.”

From a YouTuber: “What’s very interesting is that the original AI portrait was posted a couple of months ago and didn’t include this weird demonic figure that you see right behind Trump in the new updated version. It’s all truth in plain sight and this is all part of their satanic agenda.

“You see the spikes on the head and this represents Lucifer. This is all part of the false light because Trump sees himself as a hero on the world stage.

“Trump’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is all part of their design because they want to collapse the old system by any means to bring in their New Order system. Again, we are not far off from Agenda 2030.”

In the background of this AI-generated image of Trump as Jesus is the Statue of Liberty.

Interestingly, on the U.S. Air Force’s Congressional Medal of Honor is the Statue of Liberty. If you click on an image of it on the official government website for the Medal of Honor (note: it has since been removed), there WAS this description: “The Statue of Liberty is centered in the Air Force design. In addition to standing for liberty, it is derived from the imagery of Queen Semiramis from Babylon, who is famed for her beauty, strength and wisdom.”

“I think this is very interesting because most of the research I’ve done on the Statue of Liberty finds that it is derived from Libertas, which was an ancient Roman goddess,” says a historian. “In a Roman Imperial Coin from 196 A.D. you have a depiction of Diana’s head on the front side and on the back is written 'Diana Lucifera' and Diana has spikes on her head, looking like the Statue of Liberty. She is holding a torch with a flame, just like the symbolism of the light-bearer. Lucifera means ‘light-bringing.’ "

From a Masonic website:

“The Statue of Liberty in New York harbour was presented in 1884 as a gift from the French Grand Orient Temple Masons to the Masons of America in celebration of the centenary of the first Masonic Republic.

“She is holding the Masonic ‘Torch of Enlightenment.’ Also referred to back in the 1700s by the Illuminati Masons as the ‘Flaming Torch of Reason’. The Torch represents the ‘Sun’ in the sky. The Statue of Liberty's official title is, ‘Liberty Enlightening the World’.

“The cornerstone of the statue records how it was laid in a Masonic ceremony.

“Illuminati means to ‘bare light’ and one way to symbolize this is by carrying a torch. A torch sits on top of the Statue of Liberty, on top of JFK's grave, and on top of the tunnel where Princess Diana was killed.

“The Statue of Liberty, which was designed by the French sculptor Bartholdi and actually built by the French Engineer, Gustave Eiffel (both well-known Freemasons), was not originally a ‘Statue of Liberty’ at all, but first planned by Bartholdi for the opening of the Suez Canal in Egypt in 1867.

“Bartholdi, like many French Freemasons of his time, was deeply steeped in ‘Egyptian’ rituals, and it has often been said that he conceived the original statue as an effigy of the goddess Isis, and only later converted it to a ‘Statue of Liberty’ for New York harbour when it was rejected for the Suez Canal.

“The goddess Isis is known by many names, including Juno. Interestingly, the goddess Juno made an appearance on a Vatican coin in 1963 (notice her torch) during the period of the alleged Freemason Roncalli's Pontificate, the curiously named John XXIII, architect of the disastrous Vatican II.”

Demonstratively, validatible truth

(hate to even write this down but I am still working on new article. I have been inordinately tired since this heat wave arrived. the air-conditioning at my workplace is very mediocre, especially where I'm often at--what's known as the "back dock." Like other colleagues doing the same kind of physical labor, I spend a good portion of the day with a constant light perspiration.)

In English there’s a difference between the words “man” and “husband,” but not in Dutch. In both cases, they say “man,” as pointed out recently to Richard Jordan by a student of Grace School of the Bible living in Holland.

He wrote in a note, “I love the King James Bible. So many times it helps me to understand my Dutch Bible better. I don’t understand English people saying it’s difficult to read. To me, a Dutch-speaking man not educated in the English language, it is very, very clear that the (KJV) is my greatest help in understanding my Dutch Bible.”

In reading this man’s sentiments in a recent sermon, Jordan stressed, “I say to people all the time, you shouldn’t be mad at the translators of your Bible if they know more about your language than you do. II Thessalonians 2:7 talks about, ‘For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.’

“People say, ‘Let? What’s that?’ If you look the word ‘let’ up in an English dictionary, there are six different definitions. Out in the country, Down South, for example, when you rent a piece a land out to somebody, we say, ‘We’re going to let it out.’

“If you try to hit a ball over the net and it hits the net, you say, ‘Let.’ That means it’s a hindered serve and has to be redone. In Exodus 5, Moses says to Pharaoh, ‘Thus sayeth the Lord, let my people go!’ In verse 4, Pharaoh says, ‘Wherefore do ye, Moses and Aaron, let the people from their works?’

“Within five verses the word’s used two ways. You say, ‘That’s confusion.’ No, that’s just somebody who knows more about English than you do. You know, one of the greatest ways to learn the language is just to read your Bible. If you read it and let it educate you, not just in what it says but how it’s given in the language you speak, it will elevate your vocabulary and capacity to speak and learn.”

*****

“Jesus Christ says to the leaders of Israel in Matthew 22:31, ‘Have you not read that which was spoken to you by Moses?’ and He quotes Exodus 3. That’s one of the greatest definitions of inspiration in the Bible. What’s written down there is what God spoke.

"That’s what inspiration is. God picks some words, put them on paper, and the living word of the eternal God is in written form, preserved. And what Moses wrote in Exodus 3, Jesus said, ‘You birds got it to read right here,’ and by the way, they didn’t have the original manuscripts.

“They didn’t even have it in the same Hebrew dialect if they had it in Hebrew at all. The fact is most people have come to the conclusion that in the 1st Century in Israel they weren’t speaking Hebrew; they were speaking Aramaic (a language that uses the Hebrew alphabet but is a little different—like Portuguese and English).

“Did you know it’s very possible the New Testament wasn’t even written in Greek to start with? Paul writes a book to the Galatians (modern-day Turkey) and they weren’t for the most part Greek-speaking people. I’m just saying there’s all kind of stuff that gets flown into the wind out here.

“This idea that, ‘Well, they wrote it back there, but it’s been lost, and what we have over here is a dynamic equivalent of that,’ that’s just not what Jesus believed! The doctrine of preservation is a Bible doctrine.

*****

“How can I get in Him when He’s not here? ‘I can get in the tub; I can’t get in Him!’ You say, ‘Well, it didn’t mean that.’ Well, why didn’t it say what it meant?! I’m telling you about what people tell me about where they’ve been with this stuff.

“When it says you’re baptized into Jesus Christ, that’s a supernatural activity. There’s nothing physical about that! If Jesus Christ was standing right here you couldn’t get in Him! Not physically possible; it’s a supernatural thing, though. ‘By one spirit are we all baptized into one body.’

“What it means to be ‘in Christ’ is the spirit of God takes me out of where I was, which was in Adam, and puts me into (changes my location and thus my identity) Jesus Christ and together with Him I died. I was crucified. Then I was buried with Him. He put away the ‘old man.’ Then I was raised with Him to walk in newness of life.

“Not only did I die with Him, was crucified with Him, buried with Him, raised with Him, but I ascended with Him and I sit with Him at the Father’s right hand. I share His authority with Him in the heavens. Why? Because God the Holy Spirit put me in Him. He took me out of who I was and put me into who He is. ‘For me to live is Christ.’ Everything He is is mine!

******

“You know why Satan doesn’t want you to see this stuff? He doesn’t want you to see THAT! I’ve been reading Ephesians 1 every day for the past six months and I’m just totally captivated by how everything focuses in Him. Verse 4 says, ‘According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.’

“Not to be IN Him; He chose you in Him. Once you’re in Him you’re part of the elect purpose of God and His Son that He established before the foundation of the world that you ‘should be holy and without blame before Him in love.’

“I Peter 1:20 says that Jesus Christ before the foundation of the world was spotless and holy. In John 17:24 He says, ‘Father, you loved me before the foundation of the world.’ You know what He says about you and me?

"He says God Almighty today has put you in His Son so He could think about you the same way He thought about His Son before the world began.

“Wow! You see that?! He took you and me and blessed us according to His plan He’s had of what He’s going to accomplish in His Son, and He put you in a program where He thinks about you the same way He thought about His Son.

I read that in Ephesians and I think, ‘It can’t get any better than that!’ Then I read the next verse and say, ‘Oops, wrong! It gets even better!' Verse 5 says, ‘Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.’

“There are 12 blessings Paul lists between verses 4 and 14. When he says, ‘You’re accepted in the beloved,’ what does that make you think of? Where do you go in the Bible to find that Jesus is the Father’s beloved? In Matthew 3, Jesus is coming to begin His earthly ministry and it says, ‘And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

“He didn’t say ‘in whom I am pleased.’ He said ‘in whom I am PLENTY pleased.’ ‘I’m ecstatic! I’m pushing it to the wall. I can’t get any more pleased than I’m pleased with Him. He’s my beloved!’ He’s the ‘apple of my eye,’ the Old Testament says.

*****

“In the Bible, when you read a passage about the end of the world and then one that says “world without end,” obviously these are contradictory terms that make you stop and think.

Isaiah 45:17 says, “But Israel shall be saved in the LORD with an everlasting salvation: ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.”

“You can see that even in the prophetic program, not just in Paul, the Bible talks about and expects the world to not end but to go on.

"We use the term 'world' in several different ways. Sometimes we refer to the planet we live on. Sometimes you talk about the ‘Wide World of Sports.’ We use that word world in the sense of an organized system of activity were involved in.

“We talk about the world tomorrow. We talk about an age—like the Iron Age. Every time the word ‘world’ appears in the Bible it’s not talking about the earth; most of the time it’s not. In Isaiah 23:17, for one example, when it talks about ‘the kingdoms of the world,’ the term is talking about the organization of the affairs that are taking place on the planet.

“So when you go back over to Paul and he talks about a ‘world without end,’ he’s talking about this organized system going on that’s never going to end. But when Jesus talks about the end of the world, He says there is an organized system that IS going to end. Paul talks about this present evil world. How long do you think that’s going to last? Not forever.

*****

“II Peter 4 says, ‘For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;
[5] And spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth person, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood upon the world of the ungodly.’

“There was a way things were organized before the Flood that’s different from the way things are organized after the Flood, but not only that, Rev. 11:15 says, ‘And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.’

“The way things were organized with Satan as the prince of the world, and the one in control of the world system, is all going to give way into a new world order headed up by the Lord Jesus Christ.”

*****

Jordan continues, “Nostradamus. You still reading that outdated guy?! Somebody says, ‘Well, don’t you know about the Planet X that’s out there?’ It doesn’t exist—that’s just bad, bogus science! People say, ‘Well, there’s going to be the pole shift; the solar flares.’ All of that is just debunked bad science! It’s myths, lies; it’s just stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with anything. And you compare that with the historically, validatible, predictive prophecy of the Bible and you say, ‘I can trust what the Bible says.’

“Caesar Augustus sent out a decree that all the world had to be taxed. In order to fulfill that prophecy, Joseph had to take Mary and move her from Nazareth to Bethlehem a week before she’s going to deliver. That isn’t a normal kind of a thing that happened and he used the pagan emperor of Rome to instigate the mechanics to get them moved so that the boy was born in exactly the place God, seven hundred years before, said He would be born!

“Some people will say, ‘Well, Micah couldn’t have known that 700 years before so it had to have been written later.’ Listen to me, something that is historically validatible to have happened in predictive prophecy like that, and it comes to pass, is mathematically, statistically evidence of the validity of the statement and the source it came from.

“You’re familiar today with the science of DNA. DNA validation is simply the use of the statistical probability. When they say it’s ‘a certainty that this is your DNA, not anybody else’s, and we can take your life, convict you and put you in prison forever because we know that it’s an absurdity not to believe this is your DNA,’ they’re saying there’s a mathematical, statistical probability that the code that comes from your DNA is yours and not anybody else’s. And when something is considered to be in statistical probability of ten to the 47th power, it is an absurdity not to believe it’s true.

*****

“When you take a predictive prophecy like where He’s going to be born 700 years before the historical certainty of that, it gives you a mathematical . . . people say you can’t prove the Bible scientifically but here you can! There’s a mathematically, statistically, scientifically demonstrative proof of the historic reliability of God’s Word.

“Do you know if you took eight prophecies like that . . . could you find eight pre-statements about Jesus Christ that were fulfilled in His life? I bet you could find 16. I’ve got a list of almost 300. If you got eight of them you’d have a statistical probability of ten to something like the 27th power, and if you had 16, it would be 10th to the 54th power, and if you’ve got 10th to the 54th power, it would be an absolute scientific absurdity not to believe it’s true!

“Isaiah 41 said, ‘You know how you know I’m God? Because I can tell you the future and make it come to pass and it comes to pass just exactly the way I said it and that’s the way I prove myself.’ The Bible is a demonstratively, validatible proof.

*****

“History’s greatest secular historians (like Edward Gibbon’s ‘The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’) talk to you about the translation of the Old Testament into Greek called the Septuagint, and everybody will tell you that 200 years before the time of Christ the Septuagint was available. It is historically accurate to say the Bible was translated into Greek several hundred years before Christ.

“You know what that Greek translation of the Septuagint had in it? Malachi 5:2. The same thing your Bible says. Every historian that ever lived who talked about this acknowledges that that prophecy lived at least 250 years before Christ in the text there. Go look at Encyclopedia Britannica or look at Wikipedia, they’ll all tell you that.

“There is written into the fabric of Scripture some of the most fascinating patterns that demonstrate to you that the person who wrote the Scripture back in Genesis and Exodus knew what was going to happen over here in our day.

“And He wrote those passages back there to give you a prophetic picture of future events down to details that are inexplicable other than the fact that the person who wrote back there knew what was going to happen over here. We call that typology.”

MYSTERY meat as deep as it gets

(had a very unexpected, trying day and just grateful to be home, soaking up air-conditioning in the midst of this so-called "heat dome" over Ohio, where temps are in mid-90s with super-high humidity. I will post new article tomorrow now and sorry for delay)

While New Agers are out trying to help usher in the dawn of a millennium of peace in which they believe a new species of man, Homo luminus, will emerge, Satan’s angels are seething in the heavens as they’re constantly confronted (through their observation of us Believers) with the reality they will one day be supplanted by a new species of humanity, namely "the church the Body of Christ."

“Using men for the repossession of the heavenly places would certainly require such a new man (the ‘one new man,’ as Paul calls it), and that is exactly what God is creating today in Christ,” writes Keith Blades in his perennial classic from 1994, "Satan and His Plan of Evil."

“In doing this, God has seen to it that the entire Satanic plan of evil will be destroyed, both in the heavenly places and in the earth.

“Moreover, by keeping the heavenly aspect of His plan ‘a secret since the world began,’ God completely took Satan in his own craftiness, and has put him and his angelic cohorts to an open shame. Genius and wisdom belongs to God only, and not to Satan.”

*****  

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

Richard Jordan explains, “In this verse, Paul talks about the three ways you can know something. By the eye, or empiricism, the ear (rationalism or figuring it out on the basis of reason) and then revelation. God can reveal the thing to you, as in verse 10: [10] But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.

“It’s important to understand that ‘the things which God hath prepared for them that love him,’ have to do with the mystery truth back in verses 6-8. Verses 7 and 8 say, [7] But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory:
[8] Which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.

“In the context here, the things of God from verse 9 are the things of the mystery. He’s talking about some doctrinal reality God’s determined to do. Never read verse 9 by itself. Never go off and say, ‘Well, you can’t know these things, therefore boo, hoo, hoo.’

“I remember as a teenager reading in the newspaper Billy Graham’s syndicated column, ‘Ask Dr. Graham,’ where somebody wrote him, ‘How do you explain all the sufferings and the difficulties in the world?’ Graham quoted I Corinthians 2:9 and wrote, ‘Well, you just can’t figure them all out.’

“I was 17 or 18 years old and I kept thinking, ‘Oh, Billy, read verse 10! Read verse 10, would you please! Don’t just quit in verse 9!’ I mean, verse 9 leaves you with a blank wall and darkness.

"Verse 10 says, ‘BUT God.’ Don’t you love the ‘But God’s’ in the Bible?! That takes you out of your darkness, your inability and helplessness, and puts you on the side of strength and possession.

“Notice the description of the things of God in verse 10. ‘The Spirit searcheth all things.’ That is, He knows everything there is to know. He’s not talking about how the Spirit doesn’t know what’s going on so he looks into it. He’s talking about how there’s nothing held back from what the Spirit of God understands and knows.

“David says to God, ‘Search me and know me. Try me and see if there be any evil way.’ He isn’t saying God doesn’t know what’s in his heart. He’s saying, ‘Come down here and know me and look and see and examine.’ Not as someone who doesn’t know, but as someone who DOES know.

“The spiritual man can personally, experientially enter into all things--‘yea, the deep things of God.’ He knows the doctrines of God inside and out; he even knows the deep things of God. When Paul’s talking about deep things, he’s talking about mystery truth. He calls them that because they’re hidden things and not known.

“Notice how this word ‘deep’ is used in Psalm 92: ‘[5] O LORD, how great are thy works! and thy thoughts are very deep.
[6] A brutish man knoweth not; neither doth a fool understand this.

“The idea there is a brutish man, a natural man, can’t know them. For a thought to be deep, the idea there is that it’s unknown. It’s not understood by others. They’re hidden thoughts. They’re thoughts that are kept back and not made known.

“The mystery truth is that God kept some things secret and hid in Himself so that no one else could know them. They were tremendous in their value and scope but it was also hidden wisdom.

“You understand, folks, ‘the mystery’ is the deep things of God. Mystery truth is as deep as it gets. Somebody says, ‘Well, we want to get into prophecy; we want to get into the deep things.’ No, you get into prophecy--that’s called ‘the milk of the word.’ You want the meat, this is it!

*****

In Daniel 2, Daniel is talking about getting the secret of Nebuchadnezzar’s vision revealed to him. He says starting in verse 19, [19] Then was the secret revealed unto Daniel in a night vision. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven.
[20] Daniel answered and said, Blessed be the name of God for ever and ever: for wisdom and might are his:
[21] And he changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth kings, and setteth up kings: he giveth wisdom unto the wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding:
[22] He revealeth the deep and secret things: he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him.

“That’s what Paul’s talking about. He’s talking about things that are wonderful in the sense they are so far BEYOND what man can comprehend. But it’s not simply that, because in verse 10 there he tells you there’s things God has revealed to us. The deep things of God are knowable! Paul’s not saying that God’s laid out in the pages of His Book things so deep and big that you can’t understand them.

“I heard a guy say once, ‘If I told you everything I know, it would crack your skull.’ He was saying he knew so much Bible it would make your brain explode. That fellow went around most of the time carrying his head in a wheelbarrow it was so heavy; he thought so much of himself. He had a hard time pushing it along it was just so big.

“The idea in the passage is you can’t find them on your own. On your own, it’s not knowable. You would have never figured it out on your own, but now God has revealed it to you. That’s the issue.

*****

“Romans 11 says, ‘[33] O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
[34] For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?
[35] Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?

“Paul has just spent 11 chapters writing down, delineating, and explaining the judgments and the ways of God. He’s just spent all the previous part of Romans revealing to you the MIND of the Lord.

“In I Corinthians 2, the last verse says, ‘[16] For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.

“Where do you have it? In the Word of God. Folks, you wouldn’t know the depth of them if they weren’t revealed to you. You ever thought about that?! You would just SUSPECT that they must be deep, big and wonderful.

*****

“In your Bible, there’s not only the deep things of God; there’s another system of deep things. In the first two chapters of II Corinthians is the conflict between divine viewpoint and human viewpoint. More than that, though, between divine viewpoint and ‘the wisdom of the princes of this world which God’s wisdom has brought to nought.’

“The program of the Adversary is referred to in Revelation 2:24: [24] But unto you I say, and unto the rest in Thyatira, as many as have not this doctrine, and which have not known the depths of Satan, as they speak; I will put upon you none other burden.

“Notice, the depths of Satan is associated with a doctrine. There is a wisdom and a set of principles, programs and plans and philosophy that are described in the Bible, not as ‘the deep things of God,’ but rather as the deep things of the Adversary.

“It’s his agenda, his program, his plans, his purposes, his personality, and what he is seeking to accomplish. It has to do with a doctrine. It’s laid out in Revelation very clearly and we’ve studied it over and over in Baal worship and the counterfeiting, being ‘like the most high.’

“You go to Ezekiel 28 where we studied how Lucifer is full of wisdom and the sum of wisdom and beauty and there’s no secret thing kept from him. Satan thought he knew everything, so God just kept a secret about what He was going to do through the Cross.

“God keeping the meaning of Calvary hidden brings Satan’s wisdom to nought because Satan couldn’t see it, even though God said it was going to happen and prophesied and fulfilled it in exact detail, in the minutia.

“Satan still couldn’t figure out what God was going to do with it because God didn’t reveal it to him! God kept a secret that caused Satan to deceive HIMSELF! And so it’s a shameful, embarrassing thing to the Adversary and it brought his wisdom to nothing.”