The character of THAT tribe

In Judges 18, the children of the tribe of Dan show up, “And the priest said unto them, Go in peace: before the LORD is your way wherein ye go.”

Jordan explains, “You know, one of the major marks of this crowd is they’re always talking about peace. ‘Go in peace, my brother.’ ‘Go in peace, my son.’ That’s a hallmark of their message and the Danites say, ‘Why don’t you come and be a priest and a father to us?’

“They’re saying, ‘Hey man, we’ll give you a bigger parish. We’ll give you a bigger congregation. We’ll get you out of that little small church there and you can head up the whole tribe.’

“Now right here is where Baal worship got its foothold in Israel. Micah’s just got his family, but now the whole tribe of Dan is going to be converted to Baal worship.

“Verse 20: ‘And the priest's heart was glad, and he took the ephod, and the teraphim, and the graven image, and went in the midst of the people.
[21] So they turned and departed, and put the little ones and the cattle and the carriage before them.’

“He takes all this religious paraphernalia that he’s using to worship God and packs off with the other guy. Verse 23: ‘And they cried unto the children of Dan. And they turned their faces, and said unto Micah, What aileth thee, that thou comest with such a company?
[24] And he said, Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and the priest, and ye are gone away: and what have I more? and what is this that ye say unto me, What aileth thee? Ye have taken away my gods.’

*****

“Now that’s what happens when your religion is made up of all that external nonsense. When you lose your priest, your idols, your ephod--all this external paraphernalia . . . He says, ‘What do you mean, what ails me?! I don’t have anything left!’

“That’s a great insight into the psyche of people who get caught into this. One of the reasons they hang on to it is because it’s all they’ve got. And you can’t take something away from somebody unless you give them something better in its place.

“That’s why the gospel . . . Thessalonians says they ‘turned to God from idols.’ Not that they turned from idols to God, they turned to God, and when they did, they left the idols.

*****

“Deuteronomy 33:22 is going to match what Jacob said about Dan back in Genesis 49 when he gave those prophecies on the twelve boys. There are various places in your Bible where people give prophetic utterances (statements) about different people. Jacob does it in Genesis 49 about the tribes, the boys.

“In each one of them you’ll see, ‘This is the character of that tribe that comes from that boy.’ Here’s Moses’ assessment: ‘And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion's whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.’

“A whelp is the offspring. Who is the lion? Well, the lion of the tribe of Judah is the Lord Jesus Christ but this is going to be the lion of the tribe of Dan. Well, who’s the counterfeit lion in the Bible? I Peter 5:8. It’s Satan--going around as a ‘roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.’

*****

“That place Bashan is important. Psalm 22. Matt. 27. By the way, there’s no way to understand this stuff if you don’t study all of the Bible. I mean, I tried to use Revelation 17 and Judges 17 because those passages kind of crystallize it. There are three to four other chapters we could have used. But out of them you run all these other places.

“If you don’t understand the rest of Scripture when you read the thing about an ephod, you don’t make the connection between the robes and the long robes and by the way, in II Kings 10, you know what those long robes are called? Vestments. Jehu gathers the Baalite priests into the house of Baal and he gives them their vestments.

“You go into these churches and the lobby out front, you know what you call that? The vestibule. You call it that because that’s where the priests vestments were kept.

“I mean, everything you don’t understand that’s going on out there in the world, if you stay long enough you’ll find the answer to it in Scripture.

“You’ll never understand the real enemy if all you study is Romans through Philemon. If you study those books it becomes very obvious that Paul understood this stuff and expected us to understand it.

*****

“Matt. 27:36. All around that Cross, the only friends Christ had there were Mary and Mary and John; everybody else forsook Him. And the crowd around that Cross mocked Him. He identifies them as the ‘bulls of Bashan.’ In other words, they were carrying out this system right here and they were personified by Israel’s religious leaders. That’s why He told them in John 8, ‘You are of your father the devil.’

“Jeremiah 14:17 and Psalm 16. Here’s what their worship service centers around. Their worship is going to be focused in incense, drink offerings . . . The drink offering is going to be in that golden cup and that golden cup is going to be filled with wine. Rev. 16:4.

“Deuteronomy 32 talks about the ‘pure blood of the grape,’ and these guys when they consecrate that wine, what do they say happens to it? It turns back into blood.

“That’s why in Revelation 17 he calls it ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT.’ When he says ‘mystery,’ he means superstitious mystery religions.

*****

“In I Kings 16, Ahab and Jezebel make Baal worship the official state religion. They go out and rebuild Jericho, a cursed city, and Babylon, a cursed city. And Israel never recovers from that.

“Go to Exodus 32 where they start worshipping the calf. When Moses came down off the mountain, Joshua says there’s the noise of war. Moses says, ‘No, it’s not the noise of war. It’s the noise of people dancing.’ And when he got down there, Exodus 32 says the people were naked. They were dancing naked to music.

“Where did they learn music from? They’re only a couple of days out of Egypt. Egypt in the Bible is a type of the world.

“You hear Christians talk about contemporary Christian music, but it’s just the world’s music and it makes you dance.

“There’s three parts to the language of music—the melody, the harmony and the rhythm. The melody is designed to carry the lyrics. Harmony is designed to bring harmony. When you have two more notes played, they have to be harmonious. It’s designed to make you feel; touch your soul.

“The rhythm is designed to keep it all together. Everybody’s hitting the same note at the same time. The rhythm is designed to make you take action.

“What do you need when you dance? You need the rhythm. My grandson is in the drum line. He says, ‘Grandpa, we control the whole band.’ Why? They can’t even hear it but they can feel it.

“Rev. 2:14. The first time the name Baal appears in your Bible as a stand-alone name not associated with a location is with Baalam back in Numbers 22-24. Baalam was a prophet from the east and Jezebel, she’s a woman preacher. You see the religion’s all in this stuff!

“Revelation 2:20 says, ‘Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols.’

“Their worship ends in immorality. That’s what they were doing back in Exodus 32. All of this stuff ends in nothing but an open display and satisfaction of the flesh.

*****

“The thing that holds lost people in the satanic grip is that it all works to enhance the desires of your flesh, and of your mind, and to bind you by that. This religious system ends in that.

“It’s fascinating that both John and the Apostle Paul have the same conclusion about both of these things. In Revelation 18:4 is the prophetic orders.

“What’s Israel to do? Come out! Don’t be a partaker with her! But what was Israel? Joined to idols. Any time you see any of this stuff, run like a scalded dog in the other direction.

“Paul says in I Corinthians 6:15, ‘Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? shall I then take the members of Christ, and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid.’

“MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT is the ‘mother of harlots.’ She’s the source of the harlots. You know what the Corinthians are doing? They’re eating things sacrificed to idols.

“I Corinthians 10:20-21 says, ‘But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils.
[21] Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils.’

“Where would you find the table of devils? Don’t you offer cake and drinks and all that stuff around a table?

“Notice what Paul says in verse 14: ‘Wherefore, my dearly beloved, flee from idolatry.’ You know what it means to flee? There are just certain things in your life you need to run from. Not just stay away from them; GET away from them!

“And that religious system—it doesn’t all have to get itself in. it just gets its nose under the tent like it did in Judges 17. That started out with that boy’s mama giving him some money to go make him an idol with—and it grew.

“When Paul says in II Corinthians 6:17, ‘Come out from among them and be ye separate,’ that’s what he’s talking about.

“When he says, ‘Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers,’ he’s not talking about, ‘Don’t marry some unsaved person.’ He tells you that in I Corinthians 7. In II Corinthians 6, he’s talking about this thing here! Don’t have fellowship with it! Don’t have communion with it! Don’t have concord with it! Get away from it!”

Follow the bouncing Baal

Guess who this passage from the “New York Times” (Nov. 10) refers to:

“They were particularly alarmed when he told a prominent Italian atheist in an interview published in October, and translated into English, that “everyone has his own idea of good and evil” and that everyone should “follow the good and fight the evil as he conceives them.”

Yes, it’s the “oh-so-humble” new Pope Francis. He went on to say in this same interview that “the most serious evils” today are “youth unemployment and the loneliness of the old.” He called proselytizing “solemn nonsense.”

Catholicism, of course, is a form of Baal worship, something Jordan is focusing in on again for his Wednesday night studies:  

“In I Kings 18 you’ve got some people who have a ‘house of gods’ with priests called ‘fathers’ who wear long robes, use idols as aids to worship, love titles, love the greetings in the market, love to have people bow to them and kiss them and they sacrifice to calves . . .

“In their worship services, they’re doing penance with the mutilation; the cutting. If you’re familiar with the flailing and so forth . . . When the movie ‘The DaVinci Code’ came out, the Catholic order Opus Dei became widely known and one of things they do, and the guy did it in the movie, is they literally wear torture rings around their legs and around their arms and body to do penance to get God to think better of them. Where did they get that from? This stuff here in I Kings.

“You go into all kinds of religions in the world and you’ll see them flailing and beating their body. That’s what this religion does. Trying to demonstrate to God how serious you are.”

*****

In the chapter, Elijah calls Israel out for its worship of Baal. He says to them on Mt. Carmel in verse 21, “How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word.”

Jordan explains, “He’s saying, ‘Let’s fish or cut bait here, guys. If Baal’s God let’s follow him; if the Lord’s God, let’s follow him. Let’s try them out. We’ll see who’s God.’

“When you count attendance, who looked like they had the more successful ministry? They got him 450 to 1. I’ve told people for years, if you’ve got more than eight people, you’ve got more than Noah had. Poor Elijah’s by himself. Like I said, there still were 7,000 he didn’t know about. You never are alone; you just don’t think you got friends.

“Verse 24 goes on, ‘And call ye on the name of your gods, and I will call on the name of the LORD: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God. And all the people answered and said, It is well spoken.
[25] And Elijah said unto the prophets of Baal, Choose you one bullock for yourselves, and dress it first; for ye are many; and call on the name of your gods, but put no fire under.’

“He’s saying, ‘Put up or shut up.’ Notice from the passage the time of their services was ‘from morning til noon.’ In the Baal service, you had to get out by 12. Now the reason for that is they’re worshipping the sun and the sun’s going up in the morning but after 12 it starts going down. People today say, ‘Preacher you got to quit by 12,’ and that’s because they want to beat everybody to the restaurant, but that’s a hang over of this stuff in Kings.

*****

“In I Kings 19, Elijah’s bellyaching. He’s had the great day on Mt. Carmel, facing down all this crowd and he came down the mountaintop and Jezebel says, ‘Boy, I’m gonna do to you what you did to my preachers,’ and Elijah hits the road running, scared of her, and he’s all depressed now and God says to him in verse 18, ‘Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.’

*****

“Hosea 13:2 says, “And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.”

“The calves are going to turn out to be bulls and it turns out to be an ox. The calf goes back to Genesis 3 when Satan is described as a calf of the field. He’s an ox. You say, ‘Wait a minute, Satan was a serpent,’ but you see these are describing his nature, not his appearance.

“The dude that Eve faced in the Garden of Eden was not some slithering, scale-ridden, fork-tongued, armless, legless snake. What she faced was a handsome, good-looking, 33-year-old specimen of manhood who bowled her over. Tall, dark and handsome. Smooth-talking.

“But his character was that of a serpent. Subtlety, destructiveness. And when he bit, the poison of asp was under his lips. The words were lies. But in his identity he was a calf. He was an ox.

“You come along and put two fingers up like that behind somebody’s head, you don’t do that to compliment them. That’s the horns. That’s the symbol for Baal right there.”

Free from self-occupation

The key is to win the battle for the mind because that’s where the conflict’s always at.

II Corinthians 10 says, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:
[4] (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)
[5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.”

“The warfare we’re in with the Adversary today is not done by warring against flesh and blood things,” says Jordan. “Spiritual battles get fought in your inner man. God has a spirit and you have a spirit. Where would God work in you?

"Paul said to the Galatians in 3:3: ‘Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’

“You see all this performance stuff, all this activity aimed at the physical outward external stuff is backwards. Satan works through your body, into your soul and then into your spirit.

“God works in your spirit out through your soul, manifested in your body. So where’s the real battle? It’s going to be in the spirit of our minds.

“Paul says ‘casting down imaginations.’ He's saying, 'Go over and grab all that vain imaginations.' All those things you project in your mind, think in your mind, dream up, or have other people put into your thinking). The course of this world is ‘bloop, bloop, bloop, bloop’--constantly.

“I’m absolutely amazed that any young man or woman would get to be 20-25 years old and say, ‘I want to honor the Lord with my body. I’m not married and I’m not going to engage in things that don’t belong in my life until I’m married.’

“If you watch TV, every show you see tells you that sex outside of marriage is the norm, drunkenness is the norm, shooting, killing and murdering and lying are the norms. It gets pumped into your thinking all day long.

“He says, ‘Casting down all of that. Get rid of that stuff! Take that stuff and just throw it out the window.’ Imagine yourself on the third floor of a building and watch it go 'splat' on the pavement.

“Now, just because you threw it out, if you don’t put something in its place, you know what, it’ll come back or something just as bad or worse will.

“Because you can’t think about two things at once, but you also can’t think about nothing. Lay in the bed at night and try not to think of anything. Harder you try, what happens? Because you’re trying hard to think!

“ ‘Bringing every thought into captivity.’ You see, you’re to renew your mind to develop a positive habit of believing what God says. Develop a positive habit in your mind that says, ‘I am beloved of the Father.’ Bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience--not TO Christ, but to the obedience OF Christ.

“That verse is not talking about your obedience; it’s talking about His obedience. And when I bring my thinking into captivity to the grace and love of God given to me through the crosswork  of Jesus Christ, I’ll be free from self-occupation--free from thinking about me and my stuff and I’ll start thinking about me and His stuff. In fact, I’ll just start thinking about His stuff.

“And that’s when you find rest in the Father’s love. And it won’t just be a theological point and a doctrinal statement to say, ‘God loves you.’ It’ll be something that comes into your experience.”

'Pain and sorrow? That's my certificate!'

“We instinctively withdraw our hand if it’s getting burned, right? But when it comes to tribulation, God’s attitude and perspective is, ‘No, I don’t want you to behave like that,’ ” explains Alex Kurz.

“There’s a direct correlation with the activity of godliness and the sanctifying effect that tribulations now have in life. It isn’t something that we dread. It isn’t something we run away from. It’s something that we can not only welcome, but we recognize we’re more than conquerors. God says there is a specific provision He gives to us so we can triumph in life.

“Instead of looking at tribulation as something to avoid, we’re to see its value. It’s no longer an enemy. I don’t have to fear or dread. I now can welcome those tribulations.

*****

“Hebrews 5:7 is a powerful, powerful verse of our Lord Jesus Christ: ‘Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared.’

“He was a man of sorrows. Jesus was acquainted with grief. You don’t think He was touched by the effects of living in a sin-cursed world or the emotional and psychological trauma; the rejection and alienation. He knows--He feels hurt. He feels pain.

“Verse 5:8 says, ‘Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered.’

“He didn’t succumb. While He’s in pain, while He’s in anguish, while He’s experiencing the trauma, you know what He chooses to do? ‘I’m going to learn.’ It’s a learning experience! When tribulations come our way, what a learning experience!

*****

“The theme of II Corinthians actually has to do with sufferings, tribulations and infirmities. It’s probably the darkest epistle the Apostle Paul wrote.

“He starts chapter 1 with, ‘Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.’

“Drop down to verse 9: ‘But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
[10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.’

“We’re going to learn to trust what God has to say about tribulations. Our flesh and our emotions, which are committed to avoiding all that . . . we now can learn what God says about it. So now we can tackle it with this renewed understanding; this renewed knowledge about it. Don’t fear it; don’t dread it.

“Paul says, ‘I’m now going to trust what God says.’ If He says tribulation is ordained to be a spiritual benefit and blessing, are we going to believe what He says about it? We have to readjust the way we think about the problems of life.

“God will not remove your affliction. That’s why when Paul said three times, ‘Lord Jesus, please,’ He responded, ‘Paul, you aren’t thinking about what’s happening in your life,’ and Christ reminds Paul about the available inner man capacity that he already had. Jesus didn’t say ‘no’ and He didn’t say ‘yes,’ He just said, ‘Paul, you’ve already got something. I don’t need to do anymore.’

“God will not miraculously reach down into your life and remove your problem or shield you from the problem. He doesn’t give us immunity or a hedge of protection. God said, ‘It’s a blessing.’

“What do we KNOW? ‘Hey, it’s going to work something!’ When bad things happen in your life, it has absolutely nothing to do with God’s displeasure. It has everything to do with God’s delight in producing something in the core of your inner man.

“ ‘If I’m going to glory,’ Paul says, ‘I’m going to glory in the things concerning my infirmities. God’s not angry with me; He’s not angry with you.’

‘So wait a minute, Paul, why do you look like a physical mess?!’ Paul’s going to say, ‘You know what, that’s my certificate.’

“Acts 14:22 says, ‘Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.’

“ It says, ‘We must.’ Is that optional? It’s a reality. The sooner we accept the fact that tribulation is part and parcel of our experience and edification, the sooner we can employ the very doctrines God says we need in order to glory in and see the value, worth, profit and advantage in it.”

Return of the caveman

The ethic driving the culture isn’t the old two-bucket culture of biblical thinking and paganism; it’s the one-bucket culture of paganism, explained Jordan in his recent sermon on “the course of this world.”

“In Europe, historically, this thing disintegrated very slowly like taking a balloon and letting the air out of it slowly. In America, it just popped. One generation and it’s gone and a whole change has taken place in just one quick generation.

“What you hear people talk about as the decline in traditional values is a myth. It’s not a decline; it’s a funeral, folks!

“They’ve already been replaced with a new cultural norm, and people watching Fox News mourn about it, decry it, wish they could go back, just as people watching MSNBC rejoice in the new freedom and liberty and say, ‘Let’s get on with it!’

“When you go to Romans 1, there’s the bucket of truth and there’s the bucket of lie. When you have two buckets you have the thinking of the Bible. When you have only one bucket, you have paganism. What we have substituted Western values for is paganism.

“You no longer have God and Satan; truth and the lie. The Creator and the creation. Light and darkness. Man, animals, heaven, hell, male, female. You just have one bucket and everything’s in that one bucket.

“And you have no right to distinguish or discriminate between these things because they’re all in the same bucket and there’s no difference between male and female.

“If you know a male that wants to marry another man or a woman wants to marry another woman, you’ve got no right to distinguish between it and call it marriage. When you look at the animals, they’re just as valuable as a human. That’s where that thinking comes from, and philosophically and religiously it’s paganism.

*****

"When you have paganism, the symbol of it is the circle. The band Travis had a hit song some time ago that said, ‘There’s no wrong, there’s no right. The circle only has one side.’ That’s it; it’s a circle. In the Lion King, there was that circle of light and everything’s in it.

“Now, understand the new culture is very spiritual. It’s very into the supernatural. It’s very into the superstitious. That’s why everywhere you look you see vampires and zombies and avatars. The Barnes & Noble by the Woodfield Mall has a ‘Teenage Paranormal’ section as long as that wall to the door.

“I was raised in the Phil Donohue age where everything was naturalistic and there was no supernatural, miraculous intervention by God at all. Einstein said, ‘Well, I believe in a God but not one that intervenes into history.’ All the philosophy then was about God being an ‘absentee landlord,’ as Al Pacino called him. That was the idea. 'If there’s a God, that’s okay; He just doesn’t get involved.’

“Naturalism says the world just works on the laws of nature like a washing machine. It just works because it works. That’s the way it is. Before you had to spend your time defending there’s a resurrection or a virgin birth or that there could be miracles.

“Now you don’t have to convince young people there’s a resurrection. What you have to convince them of is there’s only one! Because they believe in all kind of resurrections, all kind of life after death. UFOs, zombies. What is a zombie? It’s life after death! What are vampires? That’s animal and man put together in one creation.

“There’s no distinction; it’s gone. There’s a thinking and a social impact of that. Oprah made it chic to be spiritual. She said over and over, ‘It’s okay to get in touch with your spiritual side; just don’t use the Bible.’ Why? Because the Bible says there are two buckets and paganism says there’s just one. It's, ‘Can’t we all just get along.’

*****

“Paganism requires the philosophy of tolerance in order to be able to function. The only sin is believing that there is a sin. To say that any action is wrong, or any condition needs to be changed, is abhorrent. That’s why Bible-believing Christianity is presented as intolerant. It’s presented as unloving. It’s intolerant because it’s got two buckets.

“The old culture said that truth is what corresponds with reality. The correspondence idea of truth: ‘If it’s real, it’s true.’ That’s the fundamental thinking of the Bible. How do you know there’s a Creator? There’s a creation. Duh! The first-cause demands that.

“In the old Judeo-Christian thinking paradigm we all recognize truth is out there somewhere. We might not know what it is, but if we just keep searching and dialoguing, it will be there.

“You know the story of the three blind men that tried to describe the elephant? One felt his trunk and said it’s like a rope, another felt his leg and said it’s like a stump and the other felt his belly and said it's like a wall. That’s their perceptions, but the old thinking would say, ‘It’s STILL an elephant!’  It’s the still the whole, not your part.

“The new thinking is, 'Whatever you experience it to be, it’s truth.' For you the elephant is a stump or it’s like a big old wall because the elephant is whatever you think it is. Because we’ve only got one bucket and any thinking process that you have, everyone’s experience and participation is right. It’s truth. And it’s not right to say there’s only one way. Truth is really just by experience, so it’s not right to say, ‘You’re wrong!’

“We have terms for the moral ethic that holds paganism together; egalitarianism is one. Multi-culturalism--that’s where the so-called feminist movement came from. That’s where the environmental stuff comes from. That’s where the homosexual stuff comes from. All of that comes from a complete different paradigm of thinking where there’s just one bucket and everybody’s in it. And that’s what paganism is all about.

*****

“The course of this world, when you see how it begins, is just a description of man exploiting the resources of the world without God for his own use and purposes. Romans 1:20.

“If you exploit the things of creation and harness what’s there, who should you be seeing and what should you be learning? You should be seeing the wisdom, the knowledge and the power of God. You should be seeing the provisions God has put there and His creative genius to provide for you, and you should be expanding that.

*****

“When you are given up, there’s a sense of loneliness in that. There’s a sense of the purpose that makes your heart go that is gone. You’re another Cain.

“God put a mark on Cain to protect him. It wasn’t a good thing; it was the mark of the curse. But Cain turned that into a ‘good’ thing. You see how he did that? He twisted that bad thing into a good thing and he extends that mark of Cain to other people, so it had become a symbol of protection and blessing from god. But what god is it? It’s not the right God. Now, that’s the way 'the course of the world' is going to work.

*****

“The men of Cain’s day were not a bunch of long-haired, club-carrying, half-dressed cavemen.

“There’s an issue of leisure and affluence, and what happens is in the wake of city life comes this looseness, this permissiveness, this sophistication and chicness where we don’t have to go by those old mores. There’s this constant undermining of what God established, redefining it into something different.

“With the depletion of the labor force from the country to the city (Gen. 4:20), they needed more and more efficient means of production of food and clothing and so forth, so they began to develop systems of agriculture and animal husbandry and so forth.

“Genesis 4: 21 says, 'And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.'

"Cain’s developing a whole culture of people who do this. To have an artist community, the first thing you have to have is leisure. You go all through the history of man, when there are artists, somebody has to buy their clothes, their groceries, pay their living expenses, all so they have the leisure time to go . . .

“What are the people doing? They’re using their affluence to buy all of this artistic stuff. Verse 22 says, ‘And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructer of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.’

“An artificer is an artisan; it’s somebody who’s a craftsman. There are craftsmen in iron and brass. We’re talking about metallurgy. Brass doesn’t exist until you take copper and tin and put them together.

“They set down and figured out the chemistry of metallurgy. These people had developed technology. What they’d done is gone out into creation and begun to harness it and subdue it.

“They began to take the resources of creation and exploit them, but they’re doing it without God. They’re using creation for their own interests; not the interest and purpose God put there.

“The course of this world is a course that begins to develop all kinds of activities of man, man using his creative genius God gave him to go out and subdue the earth but not for God’s plan and purpose.

“The next two verses in the chapter, people scratch their head about it: ‘And Lamech said unto his wives, Adah and Zillah, Hear my voice; ye wives of Lamech, hearken unto my speech: for I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt.
[24] If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.’

“What Lamech said unto his wives; that is the first piece of poetry in human literature!

“What’s the poem about? Violence and murder. That’s the fruit of the course of this world directed by 'the prince the power of the air.' And look how he perverted it is in verse 24.

“There’s the development of the first weapons of mass destruction: ‘If he’s going to get seven, put a zero on it for me!’ ”

Hope based in hope

Romans 5 starts out, “Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:
[2] By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
[3] And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;
[4] And patience, experience; and experience, hope:
[5] And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.”

“It appears as though Paul does a 180-degree digression when he starts talking about tribulations,” explains Alex Kurz. “We kind of want to stay on the mountaintop here, you know. Paul isn’t just grabbing us by our coattails and sort of yanking us back to some kind of reality check.

“What we’re going to find out is there’s a direct correlation and connection between the hope of the glory of God, that is going to be manifested in and through us, and tribulation. You cannot divorce the two, hence this is a very natural progression of thought and of sound doctrine for our growth and development. So there’s a deliberate focus now on tribulation.

“He says, ‘Not only so, but we glory in tribulations also.’ Notice Paul says we glory IN it, not in spite of it! There are natural consequence that you and I face from living in a broken, sin-cursed world; the bondage of corruption that touches each and every one of us.

“Whatever the troubles are, I know how we think and I know what culture teaches. All of the sugar-coated psychological gimmicks: ‘Here’s the problem over there but what I will do over here is maintain this positive outlook in life. I’m just going to dig in, grin and bear it, and I won’t let those problems . . . ’

“It’s almost like were schizophrenic here. We’re going to divorce the problem and we’re just going to have this happy outlook in spite of the problems. That’s not what the verse is saying. We glory IN them. You see the difference?

“The idea of glorying in something . . .  I glory in my wife. I value her, I love her, she’s remarkable in so many ways. She possesses characteristics and attributes and I honor her. The idea of glorying in something means we have this particular point of view that recognizes the worth and the high honor.

“First of all, Paul’s saying we’ve got to KNOW something. This does not come natural. How many of you, when there is a dilemma, tribulation or persecution, naturally see any value in it?”
 

*****

“Our joy, hope, patience--they’re not found in freedom from trouble; they’re found in the midst of the difficulties,” says Jordan.

“Tribulation works patience. So the tribulation has done its work. It’s taught you that there’s no other place to go but the truth of God’s Word. Patience is something that sustains you; keeps you there.

“Paul doesn’t just tolerate tribulation; he says God takes this tribulation and makes it serve you. First, you’re rejoicing in hope. It’s important to understand what the hope is. The verse is telling you your hope is based in hope. Hope is the rock in which joy is rooted. It’s the soil out of which the rejoicing comes. The ground of our hope and the goal of our hope are all in Christ.”

*****

 “Many years ago I discovered that when I was in need of a guidance and instruction about what to do in areas of life, I could sit down and read Romans 12, Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3 and find specific instructions that were specific to the point and to the issue I was dealing with.

“Romans 12 is always enough. I can’t think of an issue that I’ve faced in my memory that I didn’t find the clear instructions about attitudes and actions that I should take in this specific arena that I didn’t find in Romans 12.

“Romans 12 is Paul’s gathering together of the issue of, ‘Here’s the description of what the impact of God’s grace is designed to look like in the lives of Believers,’ and if you wanted to have a profile of what it is that the ministry of grace is seeking to produce in the lives of people . . . not just in doctrinal statements but what is it supposed to look like, it’s in Romans 12.

“Romans 12:12 (‘Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer’) is really, in a lot of ways, one of those encapsulized statements, right in the middle of a passage, that sort of gathers together a description of the Christian life.

“The details of your service for Christ don’t really begin until you come to Chapter 12. It’s the idea of, ‘Okay, let’s get busy being who we are in the details of life.’

“Verse 12 is in the context of how we relate to other Believers. Verse 9 says, ‘Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.’ In other words, the focus in our relationship with others is going to be on love. Let love be the real thing. Don’t ‘diss’ somebody when it comes to love. Be genuine.

“I John 4 is very clear: ‘If God so loved us we ought to love one another.’ Your love for others HAS to be based upon an understanding of God’s love for you. The reason the world can never love their fellow man . . . you see the world thinks if they can get rid of the differences between people you can get rid of conflicts. Consequently, you have an egalitarian society where everything’s equal. We call it ‘multi-culturalism’ and all that kind of stuff.

“The only way you get rid of conflict is to get rid of sin. The only way you deal with the sin issue is the Cross. The world thinks the Cross is foolishness so they reject the only answer that’s really there.

“That’s why I’ve said to you for years that you can’t abandon the world that you live in. If you want to have some impact and influence in the culture you live in, go out and preach the gospel, the truth of God’s grace, get them saved and then they’ll know and understand how to love people. Otherwise they never will.

“Abhorring evil and cleaving to that which is good is essential to love. Love doesn’t mean you just think everybody and everything’s the same. Love takes divine viewpoint and says, ‘This is good and that’s evil.’ God told Israel, ‘Woe to them that call good evil and evil good.’

“You come to verse 12 and you’ve got this dominant theme now in love just kind of echoing in your mind when you get there. That’s why it’s essential, by the way, that you go back to verse 2 and ‘be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.’

“Verse 12, under that banner of love, Paul says, ‘rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing instant in prayer.’ So while I’m serving my brother and brethren, while I’m not being slothful in business, my attitude in it is I’m going to be rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation and I’m going to be instant in prayer.

“I’m going to be continually, constantly in prayer, all for the sake of loving others, loving our enemies as we ought. This is how Christ is designed to become visible and more real, and frankly more convincing to those who are about us. His life becomes a tangible reality.”

How he gets away with it . . .

If Satan came up to a person and said, “Look, I want you to be a part of my plan and my plan’s going to wind you up in the lake of fire,” do you think he’d get many takers?

Jordan made this point, explaining, “You see, Satan’s got it camouflaged. And he’s got it camouflaged so it looks like a good idea. And by the way, everybody else is doing it and you got to make a living, etc., etc.”

“Paul says in Ephesians 2:2, ‘Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’

“Think of a course like a current of the river. It’s flowing through the world. The world is the culture in which you live and through that culture, there’s flowing a force; a life. The course of this world is to eliminate God from every aspect of life.

“ ‘The fool has said in his heart there is no God.’ That’s a heart problem, not a head problem. People say, ‘How do you know there’s a God?’ Go look in the mirror. You exist. You had to come from somewhere. Common sense tells you that. Cause and effect tells you that. The rule of first cause tells you that.

“You argue around it because you want to get rid of what you already know. So ‘the course of this world’ is like this river current running through the world system that manifests itself in expressing the philosophy of the world. The channel through which the world works and is developed is the Lie Program. It says, ‘Get rid of God.’

*****

“The course of this world starts back in Genesis 4. In fact it starts in Genesis 1:28. When God set man in the earth he set man with a course. Here’s the way the world is to operate. Here’s the way your life and your development is to come. Here’s the course that you’re to follow.

 “The ideal is to find a spouse and be fruitful and multiply. That doesn’t mean to have more kids. You have a family and they’re to multiply a new family.

“Now when families multiply, one of the things they do as a family is pass on tradition, faith, understanding. One of the ways you civilize these little savages that are born every year is the institutions God has designed to civilize them. One of the most basic ones is the family, where you pass on values.

“Then after they multiply, they replenish the earth. They go out and fill up the earth with a culture. You see how He’s developing this? And then He says, ‘And you subdue the earth.’

“You have families that multiply into communities that develop into cultures that go out and harness the resources of the planet, the earth God has given them, and then He says, ‘And have dominion over the fish in the sea and the fowl…’

“The way man is to have dominion in the earth is by marrying, being fruitful, multiplying, replenishing the earth and subduing it. There’s a process here. That’s the way God designed the course of the world to function.

*****

“You know a problem came in, though. Adam and Eve sinned. They join the rebellion of the Adversary. So Ephesians says, ‘We walk according to the course of this world.’ Satan has come along and taken the way God designed the world to function and twisted it and usurped it; taken it captive and used it for his ends. So now it’s not going to function for the purpose God had for it. Satan’s going to use it for his plan.

“When God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life and Adam became a living soul, Satan couldn’t see that soul. Satan could see God breathing into his nostrils; he could see that red clay turn pink and begin to move and become animated, but he couldn’t see that soul.

“He knows there’s something different about this dude. God just made him king of the earth! Satan said, ‘I want to be king of the earth!’ He’s come to take my place! He’s come to take the dominion that I want!’

“Satan wants to run the culture of the planet. He wants to be God. That’s what he said in Isaiah 14 back in his original plan. ‘I want to be like the most high. I want to be the possessor of heaven and earth. I want to be the one who has all of heaven and earth do my bidding.’

*****

“Genesis 4 says, ‘Replenish the earth. Fill it up. Subdue it.’ You’re going to see man doing it, but now he’s going to do it according to Satan’s plan, not God’s plan. When it talks about ‘the course of this world,’ here’s how the world operates when it’s ‘the prince the power of the air’ running things. Here’s how he sets the course of the world up.

“Cain was a farmer. He loved to dig in the dirt. He loved to grow things. That’s why he brought the fruit of his ground to God. God said, ‘You’re never going to do what your heart desires. Your heart’s desire is always going to be elusive and you’re always going to have an unfulfilled life. And a fugitive and a vagabond you’ll be. You’re going to have to be transient.’

“So what does Cain do? He leaves home and puts down some new roots. He did exactly the opposite of what God told him to go and do. He’s going to go out and live in rebellion. Genesis 4:17 says, ‘And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.’

“Cain doesn’t just go out and say, ‘I’m going to find a place to live and dwell instead of being a vagabond.’ He builds a city. What do you have when you have a city? You get a bunch of families together, you’re being fruitful, you multiply, you’re replenishing the earth. He’s going to build a culture. But when he built that city was he obeying God or rebelling?

“The first city man built was a monument to his rebellion. And he doesn’t just build a city. He names it after his own kid. That’s fascinating. He’s building a monument to his own rebellion. That tells you something about the cities.

“There’s a doctrine in your Bible (I call it ‘the doctrine of the cities’) that starts in Genesis 2 where God’s going to build a city. Cain didn’t come up with the idea. He was copying God’s idea. God built the first city. A place for Him to dwell in. Cain’s going to corrupt it.

“You’re going to have this centralized power; he’s developing a new world order. He’s developing a new course of the world. And you see it go on down. Verse 18 says, ‘And unto Enoch was born Irad: and Irad begat Mehujael: and Mehujael begat Methusael: and Methusael begat Lamech.’

*****

“In Genesis 5, you’ll see that these names are repeated from the seed line there. What that’s telling you is he’s taking these people who are in the 'seed of the woman' line and he’s taking names out of it and putting them with him. He’s trying to duplicate what God’s doing.

“So when Satan builds this city of rebellion, He’s doing it seeking to replicate and counterfeit God’s system. So as the course of this world gets to be coming on, it’s going to be the ultimate lie program being manifest.

“Verse 19 says, ‘And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah.’ Think about what Lamech’s doing there. One, he’s rebelling against the plan of God. He’s going to develop a ‘new’ kind of marriage; home life. He’s going to restructure home life.

“If you have two wives, you know what that tells you? In cultures that have polygamy, the standard rule is you can have as many wives as you can afford to keep on an equal basis. Wife #2 has to have a house on an equal status. That’s why only rich people did that.

“There’s an issue of leisure; an issue of affluence. What happens is in the wake of city life comes this looseness; this permissiveness, this sophistication and chicness where, ‘We don’t have to go by those old mores.’ There’s this constant undermining of what God established, redefining it into something different.

*****

“There are basic ravaging forces that hold lost people in a state of spiritual death. Not only are they in this condition of being spiritually separated from God, but then they have these enemies (these great forces) designed to hold them in that state of lostness.

“First is the world. Galatians 1:4 calls it ‘this present evil world.’ In fact, in that passage he says it’s 'the will of the Father that you be delivered from this present evil world.' God’s will is we be taken out of this world system because it’s the present EVIL world.

“Paul’s talking about how we live in the age, the present dispensation, of the official rejection of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The whole of the godhead has been rejected by the world, by everyone in the world, and He’s concluded them all in unbelief that He might have mercy on all.

“Satan has this plan; he calls it a wise plan and he’s out trying to merchandise it--trying to propagate it. He has this world system that’s the vehicle he uses to carry on that program and to advance his purpose of rejecting Christ and believing the lie.

"Then Paul talks in Ephesians 2:3 about the flesh: ‘Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.’

“Your flesh is telling you to go out and satisfy the appetites of your heart, and what you want to do, and you know where your flesh is? You know what sin is? ‘We’ve turned everyone into his own way.’ We want to do our own thing.

“We want our desires, and when we begin to behave according to our own appetites, then we make ourselves captive more and more to and are bound by the world system.

“Because that world system carrying on Satan’s philosophy has your appetites, that desire that says, ‘I WANT that!’ and it makes it harder for you to get free from it.

“So what these things are designed to do is hold you in a state of spiritual death.  Paul talks about how the prince ‘now worketh in the children of disobedience.’ That’s the devil. He’s the one who’s behind all this. He’s the one who’s behind sabotaging God’s program and plan.

"You have the world, the flesh, and the devil holding lost people in the state of spiritual death so they can’t get to the light ‘lest the glory of the light gospel should shine into them.’

“Now that’s a desperate situation. People’s desire is going to put them in line with and in tune with this program Satan has to advance his philosophy. So when you’re facing a world, and you’re facing Satan, and your own fleshly desires to be a part of it (your own personal interests want to participate in it) there’s a bondage there.

“The course of this world captivates and holds the world. It’s the goal of Satan’s working. It’s a description of how he achieves his plan and his purpose. It’s how he gets away with what he gets away with.”

(Editor’s note: To be continued…)

Power to endure (defined)

Paul writes in II Cor. 12:9, “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

“Paul now knows something about how to properly view the adversity he’s experiencing but, by the way, he’s not enjoying it,” explains Alex Kurz in a series of Sunday school studies he’s currently giving on how Christians are able to endure tribulation and suffering. “If you want to know what adversity he’s experiencing, verse 7 tells you: ‘And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure.’

“So what does every good Christian do? Well, Paul says in verse 8: ‘For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me.’

“He’s thinking, ‘You know, God’s God, right? He’s sovereign and I’m going to appeal to Him and ask Him to get rid of it.’

“And the Lord’s response is, ‘My grace is sufficient.’ So now what does Paul say? ‘Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.’

“Paul’s the one who wrote Romans 5, by the way. Isn’t it a comfort to know that the one who was God’s instrument in writing Romans 5 wasn’t always consistent in the application of doctrine? Why is that? We don’t worship Paul, do we? He’s made out of the same material as you and I.

“He says, ‘I’m going to see the worth, the eternal profit in my infirmities,’ and you know what happens when we begin to view trouble in light of what God says about it? ‘That the power of Christ may rest upon me.’

“Paul doesn’t say, ‘Hey, you know what, adversity builds character.’ Isn’t that what the world says? It’s, ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’ Or, ‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going.’

“Is that what Paul just said when he said, ‘I’d rather glory so that the power of Christ may rest upon me’? Now, that’s the difference between the worldly approach to adversities and problems in life with this idea that it’s going to build character—kind of like the Frank Sinatra form of Christianity: ‘I did it my way! I climbed the mountaintop! I started from the slimy bottom and I excelled.’

“God says we need to learn about how tribulation is going to work the power of Christ. It’s going to work in the realm of our inner man the comfort of God the Holy Spirit. The life of our Savior and the glory that God intends to give us.

“You want to talk about power?! Hey listen, I’m not going to talk and brag about climbing some mountain! I’m going to boast and brag about the available assets and capacities that are found in a person.

“Then look at what he says in verse 10: ‘Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.’

“When he says, ‘I take pleasure,’ that means he says, ‘I see the value.’ And you know what, he’s going to prefer those events and circumstances that were deemed detrimental; he’s going to prefer that over comfort and happiness because he wants to experience the power of Christ.

“I can’t emphasize this enough, for my own edification. We’ve got to know this; we have to learn, we have to reorient our thinking.

“And when Romans 5:3 tells us, ‘And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience,’ we must examine trouble always in light of truth and then determine what’s real, what’s valuable, what’s worthy.

“Understand we are armed with some spiritual weaponry that allows us to except the reality of tribulation and then ultimately properly respond to it.

“And what is it that God says is sufficient? You know what the means? Sufficient means ‘completely adequate.’

I Corinthians 15:10 says, ‘But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.’

“Some people envision God as though some invisible hand is always sort of lifting them up. You’ve seen that photo of the ‘Footprints in the Sand’ where Jesus carries you when times are tough.

“Romans 5:2 says, ‘By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.’ God says you’re already standing; you are in that position! What we need to understand is how to access it, but it’s already there!

“God isn’t going to go, ‘Charlie, boy, you’re in trouble. ZAP! I’m going to give you a little more grace.’ And then say to Serge, ‘You know what, you’ve got too much already so I’m now going to withdraw some of that grace.’

“You see some of the crazy religious thinking? We all possess the same amount of grace as Believers. And God’s attitude is, ‘That’s enough.’ Can you imagine God who says, ‘That’s enough.’

*****

“What does Paul ask in II Corinthians 2:16: ‘To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things?’

“Paul actually details the intense death, and he’s talking about service. He asks, ‘Who can handle this? Who can endure? Who can put up with this?’

“Where is the sufficiency? Chapter 4:11 says, ‘For we which live are alway delivered unto death for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh.’

“What things is Paul talking about? Listen, the price he is paying is in order for the Corinthians to be adults. So he says in verse15, ‘For all things are for your sakes, that the abundant grace might through the thanksgiving of many redound to the glory of God.’ You Corinthians, who by the way, should have been grateful and appreciative and should have welcomed what Paul was doing for THEM.

“Paul said, ‘All I’m going through are for your sakes.’ Isn’t that what love is, by the way? Did Jesus Christ die on that Cross for His own personal gain? He died for your urgent need. You see what love does?

“The abundant grace, the grace that Paul was motivated by, the grace that energized (not supernaturally but through the available resources he already possessed) Paul called it abundant. When something’s abundant it just flows. It exceeds.

“But wait a minute, in chapter 12 the Lord said it’s sufficient. So you have grace that’s sufficient; it’s enough, but it’s a grace that abounds. Paul is talking about the available resources that are manifested in his life that now abounds in the sense that it now WORKS! It’s ENJOYED! It’s EXPERIENCED!

*****

“What exactly is this available grace? II Timothy 2:1 says, ‘Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.’ Be strong in the grace. Well, if it isn’t some supernatural ‘ZAP!’ then how is it that I can be strong in it?! How is it that it’s always all-sufficient? How is it that I can experience the abundant grace?

“When Paul writes about grace being sufficient, it has everything to do with what we already have. Don’t we already have a complete standing in Jesus Christ? Don’t we have a perfect identity in Him? Aren’t we blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places? Aren’t we already eternally accepted, beloved and forgiven?

“You understand what the grace of God is all about? No. 1 we know that we’re His eternally. We know who we are. We know what God is doing and how He’s working. We know where we’re going. We know God’s ultimate purpose. We know how to think. We have His completed Word. We have each other. What more does God have to give you?!

“Do you understand, ‘My grace is sufficient’? We have to THINK differently. When God says, ‘I don’t need to do anything more,’ you’ve already got it! We need to access it!’

“We have to examine the details of life in light of the sound doctrine, the reality of the truth God is communicating to us. Listen, let’s focus on that! And it WILL not only sustain you, it will drive you to do things that you never thought you were capable of doing. Hence, we are more than conquerors through Him.

*****

“Romans 5:3: ‘And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience.’ Patience is the power to endure or the capacity for enduring without complaint, without rage, without discontent. Patience simply is the ability to cope. The ability to endure. The ability to bear under.

“Patience stresses this inner fortitude, this calmness, this composure under suffering or provocation. But the patience isn’t this humanistic view that says ‘Adversity’s going to build your character.’

“Romans 15:4 says, ‘For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.’

“We’re patient in tribulation. That word comfort is ‘com’ with ‘fortification.’ When God is talking about this enduring fortitude in the tribulation (this inner steel so we’re not bending or buckling; we’re not overcome) it’s the result of this comfort that the Scriptures provide.

“The world doesn’t turn to the Scriptures and if they do it’s by ‘Emergency Use Only.’ The Word of God instills into us this comfort and fortitude that enables us to be patient.

“Romans 15:13 says, ‘Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.’ We learn something about the ministry of God the Holy Ghost. He provides specific doctrine to address the specific dilemma that you’re facing and it’s the truth that’s going to effectually work in you that believe.

“II Corinthians 1:3 says, ‘Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort.’

“When Paul talks about all his tribulation, visit these websites (www.persecution.com, www.persecution.org, www.csi-usa.org) and learn about how Christians are literally being tortured in other countries, having their children sold into slavery. We all go through problems, okay, but let’s put it in perspective.

“Odds are your problems won’t compare to what the church was facing 2,000 years ago under this wicked tyranny of the Roman Empire governed by a guy who’s absolutely insane. Subscribe to ‘Voice of the Martyrs’ and, man, there’s some brutal stuff going on.”

(Editor’s note: I have at least one more installment on this topic from Kurz’ messages. Still getting ready to post “the course of this world” article too.)

Inseparable works

Sorry for the delay—I’ve got a big article I will post tomorrow about what Paul defines as “the course of this world.” Jordan has devoted a couple of Sunday sermons on it and the one he gave Oct. 20, entitled, “Captive to an Alien Power,”  really hit me on a new level. It was like going to a movie and unexpectedly having a message stick with you for days, actually coming as a revelation.

It's truly amazing how you can hear the same basic Bible truths presented over and over and then something clicks in a way that's different. You get an eye-popping intricacy or nuance that makes the reality of what's being said that much realer and able then to take a firmer grip on your day-to-day frame of mind. Like Jordan always says, "You see the bigger picture."

*****

The article I posted on Oct. 11, “Music MAKERS,” has garnered a big response. A subsequent piece on the stories behind some of the great hymn writers (Oct. 17) has also been well-received.

Reading about the people behind the hymns, and how influential their music was, is a special treat I highly recommend—one that not only gives you a fascinating trip back in time when Christianity had a MAJOR hold on the culture, but provides solace and comfort to learn how really REAL these men and women of the faith were.

*****

I didn’t know this but Ira D. Sankey (1840-1908), often called the “father of the gospel song”  for making this “new” type of music a major focus in his famous evangelical campaigns with D.L. Moody, was actually in the middle of a revival meeting with Moody when the Great Chicago Fire broke out!

According to Wikipedia, “The two men barely escaped the conflagration with their lives. Sankey ended up watching the city burn from a rowboat far out on Lake Michigan.”

In his 1982 book, “101 Hymn Stories,” author Kenneth W. Osbeck writes, “Although the singing of Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs had always been an important part of public worship starting in the sixteenth century Protestant Reformation, Sankey introduced a style of congregational singing that was ‘calculated to awaken the careless, to melt the hardened, and to guide the inquiring souls to Jesus Christ.’

“It was frequently said that Sankey was as effective a preacher of the gospel of salvation with his songs as his associate, D. L. Moody, was with his sermons.

“For nearly thirty years Sankey and Moody were inseparable in the work of the gospel, both in this country and throughout Great Britain. Sankey’s smooth, cultured ways complemented and made up for Moody’s poor English and impulsiveness. They were often referred to as the ‘David and Jonathan of the gospel ministry.’

“Sankey had little or no professional voice training. He generally accompanied himself on a small reed organ, singing simply but with careful enunciation and much feeling and expression. His voice was described as an exceptionally strong baritone of moderate compass. An English newspaper once wrote the following review:

‘As a vocalist, Mr. Sankey has not many equals. Possessed of a voice of great volume and richness, he expresses with exquisite skill and pathos the gospel message, in words very simple but replete with love and tenderness, and always with a marked effect on the audience.

‘It is, however, altogether a mistake to suppose that the blessing which attends Mr. Sankey’s efforts is attributed only or chiefly to his fine voice and artistic expression. These, no doubt, are very attractive, and go far to move the affections and gratify the taste for music; but the secret of Mr., Sankey’s power lies, not in his gift of song, but in the spirit of which the song is only the expression.’

“Another writer wrote as follows regarding Sankey’s manner of singing:

‘There was something about his baritone voice that was enormously affecting. He had a way of pausing between lines on the song, and in that pause the vast audience remained absolutely silent.’

*****  

Great accounts abound from the partnership of Sankey and Moody. Here is just one from Wikipedia:

“(Sankey’s) first and most famous composition was 'The Ninety and Nine'. Sankey and Moody were en route from Glasgow to Edinburgh, Scotland, in May, 1874, as they were to hold a three-day campaign there. This was at the urgent request of the Ministerial Association. Prior to boarding the train, Sankey bought a weekly newspaper for a penny. He found nothing of interest but a sermon by Henry W. Beecher and some advertisements. Then, he found a little piece of poetry in a corner of one column that he liked, and he read it to Moody, but only received a polite reply. Sankey clipped the poem and tucked it in his pocket. At the noon day service of the second day of the special series, Moody preached on The Good Shepherd. Horatius Bonar added a few thrilling words and then Moody asked Mr. Sankey if he had a final song. An inner voice prompted him to sing the hymn that he found on the train. With conflict of spirit, he thought, this is impossible! The inner voice continued to prod him, even though there was no music to the poem, so he acquiesced. As calmly as if he had sung it a thousand times, he placed the little piece of newspaper on the organ in front of him. Lifting up his heart in a brief prayer to Almighty God, he then laid his hands on the keyboard, striking a chord in A flat. Half speaking and half singing, he completed the first stanza, which was followed by four more. Moody walked over with tears in his eyes and said, "Where did you get that hymn?" 'The Ninety and Nine' became his most famous tune and his most famous sale from that time on. The words were written by Elizabeth Clephane in 1868. She died in 1869, little realizing her contribution to the Christian world.”