Labor of love

Here’s a good trivia question: Who was born only four years before General Douglas MacArthur in their same hometown of Little Rock, Ark.? The answer is J. C. O’Hair, born Dec. 31, 1876.

O’Hair, a one-time accountant, was in his late 20s when he became the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico! After returning to the U.S. he made a name for himself in the construction and lumber business and married a woman from Kansas named Ethel and had six kids together. In 1917 he entered into full-time evangelism and went around the country preaching and teaching. On Sept. 1, 1923 he was installed as a pastor of North Shore Church.

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For O’Hair, it was a labor of love. Jordan says, “Let your watching, let your standing fast in the faith, let your’ quit ye like men, be strong,’ be done with charity; with that mental attitude of grace.  Do it out of charity, out of a heart of evaluating the thing the way God evaluates it . . .  

“You know what the long and short of it is, folks? When you read a verse of Scripture, that verse says that this action and attitude ought to be the action and attitude you take as a Believer because you’re a Believer. You want the verses to work in your life; believe them! The only response grace will accept is faith. When you believe them they’ll transform your life into what they say.  The reality of what they say will work in your life . . .

“You don’t live on your emotions; you live on choices of your will. You emotions think anything your mind is thinking is true. It’s only a movie; it’s not real!

“God has built you so that there is a part of your inner man that is designed to put into motion the things that your heart and mind have chosen to do. Facts first, then faith in the facts because until your faith rests in the reality of the facts, those facts can never go to work in your life. They’ll just be rolling around in your head.

“When you faith rests in the facts, your faith in the facts release the power of that truth to begin to produce its fruit in your life and works effectually in you that believe . . .

“When it says that Philemon had refreshed the bowels of the saints, that’s that innermost feelings down in the seat of their inner being. He had refreshed them right down to their very core. This wasn’t a superficial refreshing: ‘Hey, how ya doin? Ya feeling alright? Yeah, good to see ya!’ and you go off and there’s still the hurt down inside, there’s still the loneliness.

“Philemon’s ministry of truth to these people worked right down into the core of their being and refreshed them in their inner man to the place it extended all the way over to their emotions.

“He believed the truth. It worked and lived in him and that truth, as it lived in him, bore fruit among the saints that was able to refresh them even in their most inner recesses of their being! Right down into their very bosom.

“The ‘bowels ‘ are the innermost feelings, the innermost recesses. It’s the farthest, hardest to reach place. This wasn’t superficial living at Colossi. Philemon didn’t minister to people in a way that was just covering over. The reason it worked that way for Philemon is the issue of faith. He really believed the doctrine and he taught people to believe the doctrine because they saw it living and producing the fruit in him. It wasn’t just facts with him; it was his faith resting on the facts that produced that life in him.”

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The Bible’s written in such a way that to really understand it you’ve got to keep poring over it and poring over it.

Jude 9 informs, “Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil he disputed about the body of Moses, durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.”

Now, that passage can be found back in the last chapter of Deuteronomy. When Moses died, Satan and Michael contend over his body.

Jordan explains, “Some people say, ‘Well, maybe it wasn’t his physical body; maybe it was the nation Israel.’ I Corinthians 10 talks about when they came across the Red Sea they were baptized under Moses in the cloud and in the sea and so that nation when it came across, it’s called in Acts 7 the Church of the Wilderness.

“Some people say the body of Moses was really the nation of Israel once it had become that separated nation—that set apart people of God. Either way you take it, Satan and Michael are contending over the body of Moses.

“And when that happened it says Michael ‘durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee.’

“Now you can go back in the book of Exodus, Deuteronomy and Numbers and read all day long ‘til your eyes bug out on the table and you’ll never find that statement back there! You wouldn’t know this event took place except that it’s written subsequently in the Book of Jude. Without Jude 9 you’d never know there was a contention between Michael and Satan over the body of Moses.

“If you drop down to verse 14, it says ‘Enoch also the seventh from Adam’ (Genesis 5). When It says seventh from Adam, that’s because there’s another Enoch. You remember Cain’s son? This isn’t Cain’s son, Enoch, this is the other one, the seventh from Adam, the one who prophesied.

“Enoch from Genesis 5 didn’t die; God took him and translated him (verse 11). The text talks about Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah.

“You begin to understand when you read Hebrews 11 that something happened at the birth of Methuselah that changed Enoch’s life and ‘he began to walk with God.’ The verse says Enoch prophesied, meaning he had a message from God. So there was some communication between God and Enoch and then Enoch and the people around him.

“Methuselah, his name means ‘when he dies it shall come.’ When he died, the Flood, the Judgment came. Enoch is prophesying about these saying ‘behold the Lord cometh with ten thousand of his saints to execute judgment upon all ungodly.’

“Every time I read that verse I think, ‘There were some ungodly dudes back there!’ Just over and over again. But there’s the prophecy about the judgment of God. One’s gonna be at the Flood; here it’s gonna be at the Second Advent, which the Flood was a type of, the tribulation.

“And Enoch prophesied of that and that’s the verse where people get, ‘Well, there’s a lost book of the Bible called the Book of Enoch which should be in there.’ No, this is the rule of subsequent narrative. You wouldn’t know Enoch did this stuff except the Book of Jude wrote it down for you.”

(Editor’s note: To be continued . . .)

A drink from some clear spring

It’s finally setting in! Reality, that is! I think 2011 has a good chance of being a good year for me!

The best news I have—and it’s a huge sigh of relief for my mother—is my sister is out of the hospital and doing considerably better. She has several new doctors and medicines and is actually sounding somewhat like her old self. She will be home for the holidays!

Jordan says, “Shem, Ham and Japeth are the progenitors of races of people who fill the earth. The contribution of each of Noah’s boys are different and distinct but they are intended to be blended together into a single organized way of life that would result in the highest form of civilization that would be possible. As soon as one of the groups has ascendancy over the other the balance is out of whack.”

In Ohio, people are proud of Ohioans, past and present. In honor of being home, here is the story behind the great hymns “At the Cross," "Satisfied" and "Blessed be the Name.”

The author of “Satisfied,” Clara Tear Williams, has given the following description of the writing of this inspirational testimony hymn:

About 1875, I was helping in meetings in Troy, Ohio, where Professor R. E. Hudson conducted the singing, when, just before retiring one night, he asked me to write a song for a book he was preparing to publish. Before sleeping, I wrote “Satisfied.” In the morning, he composed the music.

In his book, Songs That Lift the Heart, George Beverly Shea gives the following account regarding the author of this hymn:

My father, the Reverend A. J. Shea, and I were on an afternoon shopping trip for Mother, as I recall. When we came out of a store in Houghton, New York, where we had recently moved from Winchester, Ontario, we met a tall, elderly woman making her way slowly up the street. She was walking in that slow, mincing step older people sometimes do, cautious not to lose balance.

Dad tipped his hat and said good-day to her as we passed. She stopped and looked up to see who was speaking. Smiling sweetly, she returned his greeting.

“Do you know who that was, son?” he asked me on up the way. I turned and watched as she continued her careful progress. Though a distinguished woman (whom I would now describe as looking a lot like Whistler’s Mother)–I had no idea who she was.

“That,” said Dad, “was Mrs. Clara Tear Williams. She writes hymns.” There was a near reverence in his voice, and though I was only eight years old, I was duly impressed. Already, I was fascinated by music and anyone who was involved in it...

When Dad and I got home that afternoon, I told Mother about the meeting Mrs. Williams, the hymnwriter. She smiled knowingly and nodded he head. Then she went to the piano bench and found a hymnal that contained one of Clara Tear Williams’ compositions.

She explained that Mrs. Williams–a Wesleyan Methodist like us–had written the words, but that the music had been written by Ralph E. Hudson, an Ohio publisher who also was an evangelistic singer.

A few years later, when I was in my teens and began to sing solos, I memorized the hymn that Mother played that day and sang it. It was called “Satisfied.” The composer of this hymn was Mr. Ralph E. Hudson, who was born on July 12, 1843, in Napoleon, Ohio. Ralph moved to Pennsylvania with his parents Henry and Sarah Hudson when was a boy. Soon after the out­break of the American civil war, Ralph enlisted in the Army with 10th Pennsylvania Volunteers. He served his country for three years.

After discharge from the army, he became a successful music teacher. From 1872-1874, he was a Professor of Vocal Music at Mount Union College, and for the next twenty five years lived in Mt. Union-Alliance, Ohio. Ralph formed a real estate partnership with Rev. D. D. Waugh for a few years. After trying that for a while he started to write and publish hymns , he was also a lay preacher and a member of the Mt. Union Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a supporter of the Salvation Army when it struggled to gain a foot­hold in Alliance in the mid-1880’s.

Hudson moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1897 where he continued to publish music and to travel as an evangelist. In late May 1901 he left Cleveland for an extensive trip to promote his latest song­book. He stopped in Upland, Indiana, to attend commencement exercises at Taylor University, where he was a trustee. He stayed there several days and delivered a lecture. Shortly after, he fell gravely ill and died.

Ralph Hudson wrote and published other popular hymns that include: “Blessed Be the Name,” “At the Cross,” “A Glorious Church,” and “‘I’ll Live for Him.”

Editor’s note: write more later…

In Ohio, people are proud of Ohioans, past and present. In honor of being home, here is the story behind the great hymn “Blessed be the Name.”

The author of “Satisfied,” Clara Tear Williams, has given the following description of the writing of this inspirational testimony hymn:About 1875, I was helping in meetings in Troy, Ohio, where Professor R. E. Hudson conducted the singing, when, just before retiring one night, he asked me to write a song for a book he was preparing to publish. Before sleeping, I wrote “Satisfied.” In the morning, he composed the music.

In his book, Songs That Lift the Heart, George Beverly Shea gives the following account regarding the author of this hymn:

My father, the Reverend A. J. Shea, and I were on an afternoon shopping trip for Mother, as I recall. When we came out of a store in Houghton, New York, where we had recently moved from Winchester, Ontario, we met a tall, elderly woman making her way slowly up the street. She was walking in that slow, mincing step older people sometimes do, cautious not to lose balance.

Dad tipped his hat and said good-day to her as we passed. She stopped and looked up to see who was speaking. Smiling sweetly, she returned his greeting.

“Do you know who that was, son?” he asked me on up the way. I turned and watched as she continued her careful progress. Though a distinguished woman (whom I would now describe as looking a lot like Whistler’s Mother)–I had no idea who she was.

“That,” said Dad, “was Mrs. Clara Tear Williams. She writes hymns.” There was a near reverence in his voice, and though I was only eight years old, I was duly impressed. Already, I was fascinated by music and anyone who was involved in it...

When Dad and I got home that afternoon, I told Mother about the meeting Mrs. Williams, the hymnwriter. She smiled knowingly and nodded he head. Then she went to the piano bench and found a hymnal that contained one of Clara Tear Williams’ compositions.

She explained that Mrs. Williams–a Wesleyan Methodist like us–had written the words, but that the music had been written by Ralph E. Hudson, an Ohio publisher who also was an evangelistic singer.

A few years later, when I was in my teens and began to sing solos, I memorized the hymn that Mother played that day and sang it. It was called “Satisfied.” The composer of this hymn was Mr. Ralph E. Hudson, who was born on July 12, 1843, in Napoleon, Ohio. Ralph moved to Pennsylvania with his parents Henry and Sarah Hudson when was a boy. Soon after the out­break of the American civil war, Ralph enlisted in the Army with 10th Pennsylvania Volunteers. He served his country for three years.

After discharge from the army, he became a successful music teacher. From 1872-1874, he was a Professor of Vocal Music at Mount Union College, and for the next twenty five years lived in Mt. Union-Alliance, Ohio. Ralph formed a real estate partnership with Rev. D. D. Waugh for a few years. After trying that for a while he started to write and publish hymns , he was also a lay preacher and a member of the Mt. Union Methodist Episcopal Church, and was a supporter of the Salvation Army when it struggled to gain a foot­hold in Alliance in the mid-1880’s.

Hudson moved to Cleveland, Ohio in 1897 where he continued to publish music and to travel as an evangelist. In late May 1901 he left Cleveland for an extensive trip to promote his latest song­book. He stopped in Upland, Indiana, to attend commencement exercises at Taylor University, where he was a trustee. He stayed there several days and delivered a lecture. Shortly after, he fell gravely ill and died.

Ralph Hudson wrote and published other popular hymns that include: “Blessed Be the Name,” “At the Cross,” “A Glorious Church,” and “‘I’ll Live for Him.”

Room in my heart

At church on Sunday I heard a Christmas song I never knew about and really liked. Called "Thou Didst Leave Thy Throne," writen in 1864 by Emily E. Elliott, it's 3rd verse went, "The foxes found rest and the birds their nest In the shade of the forest tree; But thy couch was the sod, O Thou Son of God, In the deserts of Galilee: O come to my heart, Lord Jesus, There is room in my heart for Thee."

What was funny for me is I was in the midst of writing my last blog post the night before in which I used that very verse from Matthew 8: "And Jesus saith unto him, The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."

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On this particular Christmas week evening, with snow falling outside my window and the Bears winning in Minnesota on local TV, I am reflecting on what it means to have real security and the sense of "home." A little over an hour ago I got a call from my sister in response to a message I left for her at the desk of the psych ward at Ohio State University Harding hospital. She told me she had just been diagnosed with dementia. She will be 47 on Jan. 17.

She said, "I never ever thought this day was coming even though I knew inside it was coming." She had already been diagnosed with a brain injury stemming from a fall two-and-a-half years ago in the parking lot of Wal-Mart.

My sister asked if I was going to be able to visit her in Columbus when I came home for the holiday in another day. She actually couldn't remember if it was on my drive from Chicago to Akron. I had to tell her it would be way out of the way.

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What a sad reality that my sister could very well not be out of the hospital in time for Christmas. I can't imagine how we're going to have a celebratory gathering of any kind without her, knowing where she is and what's going on with her.

Still, I am very much looking forward to going home and being in my mom's second bedroom, enjoying all the comforts and luxuries of being in my mom's house, which used to be my grandmother's house and a house where my family once lived for over a year after we came back from being missionaries in Ecuador.

Home is home is home, I guess. "What will it be like for my poor sister come Christmas?" is all I can think. I asked if she had people she could relate to at the ward (where she's been since last Thursday) and she answered something like, "Oh, they're mostly people who are in a such a drastically different situation. They're not ones you feel you can get near to. You know what I'm talking about?"

Without thinking, I answered, "Yeah, I think so. Like the homeless people I used to come across in New York." She didn't correct me.

From of old, from everlasting

Jacob loved Joseph more than all his children because he was the “son of his old age” and therefore had a special place. By comparison, in Matthew 3, when Jesus Christ was baptized, the heavens opened and John heard a voice saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I’m well-pleased.”

“In John 10, Jesus says to the people, ‘My father loves me because I lay down my life for the sheep,’ ” says Jordan. “Ephesians 1 says we are accepted in the beloved one. We’re in the one who’s the apple of God’s heart, the apple of His eye, the one in whom He finds all His delight. He put us right in the one He loves above everything else.”

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Micah 5:2 says “But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

Jordan explains, “He says the one who’s going to come forth from thee and be born in Bethlehem is going to be the one who’s going forth hath been ‘from of old, from everlasting.’ That’s back in the old days, back in the beginning of time from everlasting. Where’s that? That’s eternity. Jesus Christ was the one who was with the Father before anything ever was made was made. In John 17, Jesus says, ‘Glorify thou me Father with the glory we had before the world began.’ ”

Genesis 37:4 says, “And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.”

 Jordan says, “Notice that Joseph is going to be hated of his brothers. They hate him for very specific reasons. The next verse tells us, ‘And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more.’ Verse 8 says, ‘And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.’

“Notice they hate HIM; he’s the object of their hate. They hate his person. They hate who he is. Jesus says to the disciples about the Pharisees, ‘They hated me without a cause.’ They hated Christ for the same reasons they hated Joseph. For his words! From the authority that God had given him.

“Here’s an illustration. John 5:18 says, ‘Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.’

“They hated him because of the words that came out of his mouth, because of the things he said, because of the doctrines that he taught. John 6:41 says, ‘The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.’

“You see it was the doctrine, it was the truth, it was the words that he spake that were like the words of no man that they’d ever heard. ‘No man ever spake like this,’ they said about him in John.

“John 8:40 says, ‘But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham.’

“They hated him because of the WORD that God spoke to him. Paul said it--he asked the Galatians, ‘Have I become your enemy because I tell you the truth.’ They didn’t want any part of the truth.

“Joseph’s going to be exalted and they hate him because of it. Verse 9 says, ‘And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, ‘Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.’

“Before Genesis is over you see exactly the fulfillment of that and they hated him because of that exaltation in the field, and in the sun, and the moon, and the stars that he was going to get.

“I tell you, Jesus Christ came and preached the gospel of the kingdom to His people and they said, ‘We’ll not have this man reign over us,’ and they hated him because of the authority God had given to Him.

“You know the verse that says, ‘Unto us a child is born and unto us a son is given.’ Unto us this baby is born but also that baby was the Son of God who was given. The verse goes on to say that ‘the government shall be upon his shoulders.’ He’s the king, He’s the Messiah, He’s Israel’s Savior.

“Now, this stuff back here about Joseph in verse 9-10 about the sun and the moon and the stars. Go to Revelation 12 and you’ll see that the things over there about Israel and the Second Coming of Christ in Revelation 12 are interpreted by this dream right here!

“Verse 11 says his brothers envied him. You know the verse in Matthew 27 where Pilate tries to release to them Barabbas, and they say, ‘Away with him; we don’t want Barabbas--we want to crucify this Jesus!’ And the verse says Pilate knew that ‘for envy they delivered him up.’ It was envy.”

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Genesis 37:12-13 continues with, “ And his brethren went to feed their father's flock in Shechem.
[13] And Israel said unto Joseph, Do not thy brethren feed the flock in Shechem? come, and I will send thee unto them. And he said to him, Here am I.”

Shechem means “shoulder”; it’s a place of burden-bearing. It’s a word that describes service.

Jordan explains, “Israel had gone out in the service of the world; they’d gone out doing their own thing and whose service were they under? They were under the bondage of the law. God says to the Son, ‘Here, I’m gonna send you to your brethren,’ and John 1 says, ‘ He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.’

“You see, old Joseph, when the father says, ‘I’m gonna send you down there to your brethren,’ and he says ‘here am I,’ that reminds me of Hebrews 10 when the Lord Jesus Christ is quoted out of Psalms saying, ‘A body thou hast prepared for me. I’m ready to go. Need a volunteer, need one to go, here I am. I’m ready.’

Genesis 37:14 says, “And he said to him, Go, I pray thee, see whether it be well with thy brethren, and well with the flocks; and bring me word again. So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.”

“God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son and when Jesus Christ came, He came to make it well with the world,” explains Jordan. “So he sent him out of the vale of Hebron and he came to Shechem. I love this. Hebron means fellowship, communion. He sends from the place of fellowship down to the place called Shechem, the place of service.

“He leaves heaven’s glory and he’s going to find his brethren in Shechem. When you think of Shechem, you ought to think of Genesis 34:25-30. Go back and read the awful sin and sorrow associated with Shechem.

“Israel’s boys are down there in Shechem and that’s the place of sin, sorrow and failure. And he’s worried about them so he sends his beloved Son to them in that condition to make it right with them and FOR them.

“Verse 15 says, ‘And a certain man found him, and, behold, he was wandering in the field: and the man asked him, saying, What seekest thou?’ That’s interesting. A certain man finds Joseph out there and he’s wandering in the field. He’s looking for his brethren and he can’t find them. You remember what Matthew says about Jesus? He says ‘foxes have holes and birds have nests but the son of man has nowhere to lay his head.’

“You remember the last part of John 7 when it says they all went back to their house but Jesus didn’t have a house to go back to so He went up on the hill, up on the mountain and prayed all night? The next morning He came down off the mountain. There was no one inviting Him to go home, no one took Him and gave Him a prophet’s chamber. No one said, ‘Come be my guest, take care of me and I’ll take care of you.’

“They find Joseph wandering in a field. And the guy says to him, ‘What do you want? What seekest thou?’ And Joseph answered, ‘I seek my brethren: tell me, I pray thee, where they feed their flocks?’ You can’t miss Luke 19:10 in there, can you? ‘I’ve come to seek and to save that which is lost. Where are they?’

“When you read about Dothan, the word means ‘law, the custom.’ Israel had gone out serving the law and had become bound by the law, bound by the custom, bound by the tradition. You know where he had found them? He says, ‘You teach for commandments and doctrines of men.’ They’re bound by the law. You make void the Word of God by your traditions.

“Israel was in a condition when Christ found them of being bound unto the bondage of the yoke and weight of legalistic performance which just condemned them.

“When Joseph heard they were down in Dothan (verse 17 and this is precious) He didn’t quit. When the going got tough, he didn’t back off. He didn’t say, ‘It’s enough, dad sent me here and they weren’t here so forget it. They weren’t where they were supposed to be so I’ll just go home.’ They’d gone down into the bondage and he followed after them. When they saw him a far off, even before he came near unto them, they said, ‘Glory hallelujah, word from home!’ NO, that isn’t what it said, is it?!

“Can you imagine these boys out there, they’re having to forage around for somewhere and they’re down here and they just keep getting worse and worse and worse and here comes the lad with ‘the coat of many colors’ because you know dad sent word; you know dad’s concerned because he sent the light of his heart, his favorite son, the son of his old age, and he’s got the coat on and he’s coming.

“But they didn’t respond, ‘Yippee, word from home! Something good to eat and some of momma’s home cooking!’

No, that isn’t what they say. They conspired against him to slay him. Matthew 12:4 says the Pharisees and the religious leaders of Israel plotted against Him how they might kill Him. And from there all the way to the Cross you see them constantly, at every opportunity, trying to get him.”

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Genesis 37: 19-20 says, “And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.
[20] Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, Some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams.”

Jordan says, “You see, they still hated him because of his words. They still didn’t believe what he had said. Jesus hung on Calvary. You ought to read Matthew 26 and 27. Spend some time meditating down through those passages and see the details of them and understand them in light of what we know about what God was doing at Calvary.

“They stand at the foot of the Cross and look up and say, ‘If thou be the Son of God!’ They didn’t believe Him. ‘If thou be the king.’ They knew He claimed to be; they just didn’t believe He was.

“Verse 22 says, ‘And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again.’

“Reuben says, ‘Wait a minute, we better not kill him.’ Verse 23 goes on, ‘And it came to pass, when Joseph was come unto his brethren, that they stript Joseph out of his coat, his coat of many colours that was on him.’

“By the way, when Reuben steps forward and says, ‘We don’t want to kill him; we’ll have blood on our hands,’ now there’s a division among the brethren. Jesus told His disciples, ‘Don’t think I came to cause peace; I came to bring division. To set mother against son and mother against daughter, and father against son and husband against wife and brother against brother. Because a choice has to be made.’

“You see, it wasn’t enough just to take him and rough him up. It wasn’t enough just to sell him but they had to shame him; take him and put him to open shame and strip him off and have him stand there in shame before them. I remind you that when Jesus Christ hung on the cross, He bore the shame of your sin. He hung there in shame, naked before the world. They stripped His garments off of Him and mocked Him and hung Him out before the world.

“Watch Verse 24: ‘And they took him, and cast him into a pit: and the pit was empty, there was no water in it.’ By that verse write Zachariah 9:11, which describes when Jesus Christ comes back, reaching out and saving Israel from a pit in which there’s no water.

“Do you know of a pit where there isn’t any water? A pit when a man would cry, ‘Send Lazarus that he might dip his finger in water and . . .’ You know about Matthew 12:40 when Jesus says, ‘As Jonah was three days and three nights in the whale’s belly so shall the son of man be.’

“There’s that Passover lamb. They take him and they roast him with fire. There’s Jesus Christ hanging on Calvary’s Cross suffering the eternal death, the second death which is the lake that burns with fire and brimstone . . .

“ ‘And  they sat down to eat bread . . . ‘ They sat down and watched him there, Matthew says. Watch the hypocrisy of it in verse 25: ‘And they sat down to eat bread: and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a company of Ishmeelites came from Gilead with their camels bearing spicery and balm and myrrh, going to carry it down to Egypt.’

“The next verse says, ‘And Judah said unto his brethren, What profit is it if we slay our brother, and conceal his blood?’ You know how you say Judah in Greek? Judas. Judah is Hebrew; Judas is Greek. Now isn’t that a stroke?! Judah says unto his brethren, ‘What profit is it if we slay our brother. Come let us sell him to the Ishmaelite’s.’

“You remember, of course, another Judas who ‘held the bag’ and was interested in the profit. Verse 27 says, ‘Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmeelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother and our flesh. And his brethren were content.’

 “You remember Israel said in John 18, ‘Oh, we can’t enter in to the palace judgment hall unless we be defiled.’ They didn’t think twice about killing God’s Son but they didn’t want to be ceremonially defiled. Religion does that to you. It binds you and blinds you!

“Verse 28 says, ‘Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.’

“So they sell him to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver and they take him down to Egypt (verse 31). The last thing you see is that coat of many colors being taken back to the father and the blood presented to him.

*****

“I don’t think I need to explain to you what that is, do I? There you see everything that happens. The whole story of what the whole thing is about. Christ comes, He’s rejected of His brethren and they sell Him out. He goes to Calvary and pays for the sin of all times and all ages and then God takes Him up out of that pit and the blood is presented.

“I’ve told you before how one of the very first tapes of Mr. O’Hair’s preaching I’d ever heard made an indelible impression on my mind. He said there are two men in the field, there were two men on a hill and there were two men of the temple. What’s the difference between the two men in the field, Cain and Abel? Their attitude toward the blood. What’s the difference between the two men on the hill? Golgotha. Two thieves on one side of the other and their attitude toward the one dying between them.

“What’s the difference between the two men in the temple, the Pharisee and the Publican? One stands and claims his religion and the other smites him on the breast and says, ‘Remember the blood of the mercy seat.’ Again, it’s the attitude toward the blood.

“The difference between heaven and hell today is the attitude toward the blood. The difference between having life and not having life is the attitude toward the blood.”

Tent life

God’s original intention was to dwell with man in His Creation and sin threw a monkey wrench into that. What God does with Israel is He educates them about how He’s going to re-establish Himself in the earth and He gives them a place where His dwelling is going to be manifest.

God would dwell on the earth in a tent made out of skin that Israel was in charge of. Amos calls it the tabernacle of David; the skin of David. You go all the way to Revelation and discover that it all begins to be accomplished there. In the between-time you have Jesus Christ come on the scene and ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ He becomes the one through whom God's dwelling with man is to be accomplished.

"So the great issue in the universe all along has been God dwelling in His creation and sharing His life with His creation," says Jordan. "Now, the tabernacle God gave Israel is a foreshadowing of that. As the verse says, ‘The Lord chose Zion and desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever; here will I dwell for I have desired it.’ His intention is to put His throne in the city of Jerusalem on the hill of Zion. That special place in Jerusalem that was the dearest to David’s heart.”

******

The tabernacle, built by Moses, is a picture of the first coming of Christ and the temple, built by Solomon, is a picture of the Second Coming of Christ.

“The tabernacle was a temporary structure--made to be moved from place to place—but the temple was a permanent place built in the city of the great king, Jerusalem,” explains Jordan. “It was built by the king, Solomon. You remember David prepared all the stuff for it and wanted to build it but God said, ‘You can’t do it! You’re a bloody man!”?

“God was saying, ‘We’re not gonna build the temple by the bloody man, we’re gonna build it by the son of David.’ There’s another first and Second Coming comparison. Moses is the prophet and he builds the tabernacle. It’s the king who builds the temple. The temple is the second meeting place; the tabernacle was the first.

“The temple was renowned for its glory, majesty and beauty. It was like the city on the hill. It was gorgeous. People would come and marvel at its majesty.

“The tabernacle was just the opposite. It wasn’t built in the city; it was built for life in the wilderness, moving from place to place. Life, not in the kingdom reign of glory, but in the wilderness of nomad life. It was humble and unattractive in its outward appearance.

“When you walked up on the tabernacle what you saw was a funny-looking wall made out of boards and skins and post. It was not outwardly attractive. What does Isaiah say about Christ in His first coming? ‘There was no comeliness about him.’ He was a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.

“The tabernacle was a place where God’s majesty dwelt but it was veiled behind the skins of that building. I keep emphasizing that the building was made out of badger skins and goat skins and all kind of skins. Well, where does god put His life? If He puts it in you, where does He put it? He puts it in a body of flesh. That’s the idea back there.

“By the way, the tabernacle was the center of life for the nation Israel. When Israel, in the wilderness, moved from one encampment to the next, the way they would settle in a location is the tabernacle would be in the center. And on one side there would be three tribes of Israel, and on another side there would be three tribes, and another side three other tribes, and another side three other tribes.

“Numbers, in the first few chapters, tells you specifically where each tribe was to be and everything about how they were lined up and encamped was determined by the tabernacle."

*****

In the Ark of the tabernacle were three things--the two tables of stone, a little pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded.

“The tabernacle is where the sacrifices were made,” says Jordan. “It’s where the priestly family, Aaron and his sons, were fed. It’s where all worship for God was accomplished. Deuteronomy 16:16 says that there were three great feasts in Israel—Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles—and the only place they could be celebrated was at the door of that tabernacle. That’s a serious matter. That tabernacle was the center of everything that went on in Israel’s life.”

*****

Jordan says there is a fascinating comparison between the tabernacle that Moses built and the Book of John because, “just like this system is a system for Israel to approach to God, in the Four Gospels, which tell Israel how to approach God, whether John knew it or not, or intended it or not, God wrote the book in such a way that it follows the pattern of the tabernacle.

“When you come in the tabernacle, there are basically seven pieces of furnishing. The first thing you see is the brazen altar where the sacrifices were brought.

“You come through the gate, from east to west, and you see an altar where there’s fire and they’re killing and offering animal sacrifices, pouring out blood. Can you imagine how on a hot summer august afternoon, when they’ve offered sacrifices all day and all night for the nation, what a bloody mess that would have been?!

“Have you ever been around people where they killed animals and the blood’s all shed out? You know what immediately shows up? Flies. Gnats. It gets nasty. That tabernacle was not a sweet, wonderful place. The brazen altar spoke about blood (for atonement of souls).

“The reason it had fire in it was because the sacrifices had to be burned. It was like a big barbeque grill and it had a grate on it. The first thing when you walk into that tabernacle, it tells you, ‘You can’t approach God till you deal with sin and the only way is with blood and fire.’ ”

Come on-a my house

God says in Revelation 1:11, "I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto the seven churches which are in Asia . . .”

The text of the title page of the King James Bible reads:

THE HOLY BIBLE,
Conteyning the Old Teſtament,AND THE NEW:
Newly Tranſlated out of the Originall tongues: & with the former Tranſlations diligently compared and reuiſed, by his Maiesties speciall Comandement.
Appointed to be read in Churches.
Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer to the Kings moſt Excellent Maiestie.
ANNO DOM. 1611 .

At bottom is "C. Boel ſecit in Richmont."

The original tongues is referring to Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. The translators compiled one book based on the 96 percent majority of the textual evidence in existence. The purity of the book meant everything.

*****

The Antichrist will be an Assyrian Jew who will reign with ten kings that make up his kingdom. You say, “But, then what does Revelation 13:8 mean when it says, ‘And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.’ ”

It means the same thing as in Luke 2 when it says, “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.”

Jordan reasons, “You think people in Brazil in that day went to be taxed by Rome? No, it’s all the world that he had RULERSHIP over. The Bible uses terminology exactly the way you do. It’s talking about all the kings of the earth who will bow to his persuasiveness. They’ll come and join willingly, not because he holds a dictatorial hand over them and says, ‘If you don’t take my mark and do what I say I won’t let you eat.’ They’ll come because they drank of the wine of fornication of his apostasy. He’s made the kings of the earth drunk with this wine and they come deluded into doing it; not because they’re forced but because they’re deceived!

“The Antichrist is going to be a counterfeit religious ruler who works miracles in the earth. Through the religious persuasion of the ‘false prophet’ he gathers authority. So there is a religious element to it and it’s called ‘mystery Babylon the great, the mother of harlots.’

“There’s a harlot religious system out there. That means there is today a whorehouse religion out in the religious system of the world that will ultimately culminate with the religion of the Antichrist and through it he’ll be proclaimed as Israel’s Messiah--as the Second Coming of Jesus for the Christians, and as the Twelfth Imam for Muslims--and he’ll be hailed the conquering hero and sit upon that throne in Jerusalem and declare himself to be God. Such will be the persuasive power of the lie program in that day and it will all focus and center in that piece of real estate where civilization began.”

*****

Paul writes in Romans 8:14, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.”

Jordan explains, “You’re not commanded. When you lead somebody you say, ‘C’mon, go with me.’ It’s a faith response.”

Kick the dust

Just like China is focusing on manufacturing, India has some advantages as the great service economy because India has Western economy and government principles. China has a communist economy and communist government principles. One will implode on itself; the other has the ability to grow with its mistakes. India, by the way, has a younger workforce. It’s estimated that by 2020 India will have two billion people. Of course, the Chinese instituted a one-child birthrate.

“If you’re looking for the real giant in Asia, I’d watch India if it were me,” says Jordan. “By the way, that’s why it’s so exciting to me! We just sent all of the Grace School of the Bible classes to China on DVD.

“Now, we won’t see them again because the Chinese government is very oppressive to the Christian church in China. They watch very carefully; they monitor the emails and they’re very suspicious. It’s that communist suspicion of one another.

“So we have to give them into the hands of people we know we can trust and they will distribute them. And the network they’re distributing them through is a network of over 2,500 Grace Assemblies in China--people who understand some of things about right division and that want this information. That’s a lot of people, folks!

“You say, ‘Well, little home churches aren’t but about 15-20 people. Yeah, that’s because they’re HOME churches! They have to be that way because of the culture!

“Understand, there was a tremendous missionary activity in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Communists took over and ran all the Western missionaries out. They couldn’t exterminate the Body of Christ, though, because it was Chinese. It was IN the Chinese people too. And you can’t exterminate the true church. In fact, the blood of the martyrs is the seedbed of the church.

“The same hunger and thirst for truth is in India too. We’re planting the same number of seeds there. Culture’s moving that way. It’s moving back to where civilization began.

******

“Ultimately, it’s going back to the Middle East. In Daniel 8 you get some detailed information about the kingdom of the Antichrist in ‘the last days.’ Those kings of the east are going to come and join forces with the Antichrist in fighting against the nation of Israel.

“In those ‘last days’ Revelation is talking about, all the nations of the earth, United States included (but the U.S. will be so insignificant at that point it won’t really matter), will gather themselves against Jerusalem and against Israel. The Antichrist will be ruling that part of the world and gathering the influence of the nations under his rubric to fight against God’s plan and purpose in the earth.

“It won’t matter what forces he gathers together, though, God’s plan will still come through. But the Word of God tells you all about this ahead of time. That’s a fascinating thing.

“He told Abraham in Genesis 15, ‘I’m gonna make a covenant with you. I’m gonna give your seed this land. Walk up and down in it, kick the dust, get acquainted with it, it belongs to you! You ever buy a house and go around in it, look in the closets, look in the attic? God’s saying, ‘It’s yours, Abe, look at it!’

“God then says, ‘But, by the way, your descendants are going to go down to a strange land, out of the land, for 400 years and then I’m going to bring them back.’ Now if they’re going to be gone for 400 years, what would that tell Satan? He’s got 400 years to put his people in the land, doesn’t he?

“See, Hezbollah didn’t just figure out how to do that! (Satan says), ‘Dig your foxholes, make your fortifications, and get ready to hold the land.’ So, when he brings Israel up . . . that’s why when He brought Israel in they’re under Joshua and He said, ‘Go in there! And those seven nations that have fortified themselves in that land, sunk their roots in and tried to take that land (God calls them OUTLANDISH people; they’re not supposed to be there) that’s your land; go in and wipe them all out!’

“And Israel didn’t do that and the conflict you see over there in the Middle East today is the result of Israel not doing what God told them to do in the Book of Joshua. But Jesus Christ is going to come back and do it Himself. That’s why Hebrews 4, referring to Joshua back in the Old Testament, it doesn’t say, ‘Joshua; it says Jesus.’ That name is the Greek form of the word Joshua. Both of them mean Jehovah Savior.  Joshua’s a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, commissioned to do what Jesus Christ will ultimately do.”

*****

The Antichrist is going to reign, not over the whole planet, but he’s going to reign over the Middle East. Daniel 8:8, talking about the kingdom of Greece and how the kingdom is going to spawn the reign of the Antichrist, he says in verse 8, ‘Therefore the he goat (defined in verse 21 as Greece) waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven.’

“When Greece was divided up, it was divided up into four divisions that we know today as Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt. Verse 9 tells us that ‘little horn’ is the Antichrist. Now where does it say he came from? One of those four divisions in the Greek empire. We call them Greece, Turkey, Syria and Egypt. In Daniel 11, he’ll identify two of them—the king of the north (which is Syria) and the king of the south (Egypt). The Syrian, the king of the north, becomes the Antichrist.

“So all of the ideas that the prophecy preachers have been peddling for years-- that the Antichrist is really going to come and take over the European Common Market, and the Antichrist is going to be the pope sitting in Rome reigning from Italy, taking over the Middle East from Italy--you know what that is? That’s idle speculation because the Antichrist doesn’t come from Europe! He doesn’t come from the Greek or even the Turkey division of the Greek empire.

“By the way, the Roman empire was divided into two sections: one in Europe and then the eastern division of Turkey and Syria. So the part of the Roman Empire that he comes from is not the European division, it’s the Middle East division.”