Being there when He brings down The House

In giving the condition of the earth after the day of God’s wrath, Jeremiah 4 quotes Genesis 1:2 about how it was ‘without form, and void.’ The earth, where the elements have melted and been dissolved, will be reformed by God into a NEW heaven and NEW earth.

“God’s original purpose was to live here on this planet, and while it’s been postponed because of the attempts of the Adversary to usurp it, He’s going to fulfill it one day in the future,” says Richard Jordan (shorewoodbiblechurch.org).

“Israel understood that God created the earth to be a place where He was going to bring down His house, His city, His palace, out of the third heaven and place it on the earth. Psalm 104 talks about Him laying the beams of His chambers.

“Abraham knew that God’s purpose in forming that seed of the woman, that became the seed of Abraham that became the seed of David, the Lord Jesus Christ, the nation Israel--that His purpose was to create a nation of people who would facilitate—they would have this city come down.

“You see it in Revelation 21-22; New Jerusalem comes down out of heaven and He sits right there on that spot He originally planned for it to be.

“They understood all that back then, and when they read about a kingdom of heaven, they didn’t think about dying and going to heaven. Nobody prior to the epistles of Paul thought about dying and going to heaven.

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“On the first day of creation, God says, ‘Let there be light.’ The deep was dark, so He put light in it so the angels could see what He was doing. Then He divides the water. He puts a firmament, an open place, in the midst of the water. In that firmament He’s going to put stars and planets and the moon and so forth, and the earth is in that open place. That’s the second heaven.

“Then He comes down to the earth and makes another firmament. Genesis 1:20 says, ‘And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.’

“You’ve got this space out there that we call ‘outer space,’ but He calls ‘the firmament’ back in verses 6-8. Then in verse 9 He comes to down to the earth and begins to make the dry land to appear.

“You go over to the psalms and it talks about how He formed the low places and high places. In verse 20 He puts in some birds that can fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. In other words, there’s a part of that firmament that’s open and accessible to the creatures He’s creating.

“If there’s a part of it that’s open, what does that imply? There must be a part that is closed. If you get more than 300 miles straight up from the earth, you know what happens to you? Well, long before you got there, you couldn’t breathe. You begin to feel a little funny and your cells begin to explode because you lost the necessary atmospheric pressure. There’s a part of this firmament that’s open to you, that’s accessible and made for you to live in, but then there’s a part that isn’t.

“They understood that the part of the firmament open to them was right there on the earth and the fowls flew up there in it, ‘But we don’t go out yonder,’ and they never thought about it.

“In fact, Psalm 115 says the earth is man’s and the heavens up there have been closed to man. He doesn’t belong there. They never thought about dying and going to heaven.

“You go to Hebrews 3 and you understand that what God’s talking about here isn’t like Romans 5 or 8, or Ephesians 1. It’s not like salvation for you. It’s not like Philippians 1:6: ‘Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.’

“It’s not like we who are the members of the Body of Christ and ‘members in particular.’ It’s, ‘Boy, if we keep going, we’re going to get in that kingdom over there and partake of that heavenly hope.’

“Why? Because that’s what their hope was; it was being there when that city comes down! That’s what the Promise is all about; it’s God being Emmanuel dwelling with us and ‘we’re marching toward Zion,’ as the song says.

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“Hebrews 6: 1-4 is probably one of THE most thorny passages on the doctrine of eternal security for anybody who either believes or doesn’t believe in it. Verse 4 says, ‘For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost.’

“About everything you’ll ever read about those verses, written by people who believe in eternal security, will tell you those people who did all that stuff listed (in Hebrews 6) weren’t really saved.

“They say, ‘Well, they took but they didn’t really eat.’ How do you partake if you don’t really eat? But when you read those things, what are you really reading about? Aren’t you reading about what happened in the early part of the Book of Acts?

“They were enlightened, the Holy Spirit came, they tasted of the heavenly gift, they got a foretaste of the new covenant blessings God had for Israel. They got a foretaste of the Word of God and what God was going to do for them.

“They got a foretaste of the powers of the world to come, the healing, the casting out of demons, the miraculous signs and wonders. They got a foretaste of all of that! And if Israel, who had all of that witness in their midst, turned away from it, he says it’s impossible to ‘renew them again unto repentance.’

“He’s talking about when the nation has this little believing remnant, and if you don’t come and partake in this, the only thing left for you is the fire of the tribulation and the wrath of God and that’s why He says in verses 7-8, ‘For the earth which drinketh in the rain that cometh oft upon it, and bringeth forth herbs meet for them by whom it is dressed, receiveth blessing from God:
[8] But that which beareth thorns and briers is rejected, and is nigh unto cursing; whose end is to be burned.’ ”

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“When Job talks about how the ‘pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof,’ a pillar is a structure that holds a multi-level building. That’s why in Amos 8:6 he talks about God building His stories in the heavens. The Sears Tower has over 100 stories, we say.

“The heavens are like a building and God uses this building terminology to describe the layers of authority and realms of activity he’s placed out there and they’re built on pillars.

“Now, when Paul talks about how Jesus Christ will ‘reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven,' he’s not talking about stars and nebula (the physical creation). He tells you he’s talking about thrones and dominions. Well, those are positions of government. Where are they located? In heaven and in earth.

“Isn’t it interesting  that in Genesis 1, Moses didn’t say, ‘God created the universe.' He says, ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.’ He didn’t just create the physical universe; He created a government to run that physical universe. Now, if you’ve got a government, what do you need? You need some creatures to be in the government.

“What He does is He populates the heaven and the earth with positions of government; then creatures to be in them. Now, the original creatures in those positions were angels, and races of angels—statuses of angels.

“And God’s original intention was that all the positions of government in heaven, and all the positions in the earth, would focus on Jesus Christ and promote His will and His glory. Because why were they created? They were ‘created by him, and for him.’ (Col. 1:16)

“Now, we know something happened. There’s a fellow that He created called Lucifer. What Lucifer does is he says, ‘You know, God’s got this plan. It’s called ‘truth’ and it’s a wise plan, but I got a better plan,’ and Satan develops what Daniel 10 calls a ‘policy.’ It’s called ‘the lie’ by God.

“If you want to usurp a position of governmental authority, what do you do? You get the folks in it to follow you and not the other guy, right? So Lucifer did that. And you have the fallen angels.

“In response, God says, ‘I’ll tell you what, I got a plan. I’m not going to tell anybody about it, but I got a way to fix this. Because I got a plan where I’m going to come and do for man what he couldn’t do for himself,  and I’m going to do it by way of a cross—something nobody ever thought about doing.’

“God said, ‘I’m going to become the creature and I’m going to pay for their sins, and I’m going to redeem them, and I’m going to reconcile them through the blood of that Cross.’ You’d have never thought of doing that as long as you live and Satan never would have either!

“Ezekiel 28 says of Lucifer, ‘He was so wise there was no secret you could keep from him.’ God says, ‘Well, I’ll just show you how dumb he is; I’ll keep a secret he won’t figure out.’

“ ‘He won’t figure out that somebody could love the unlovely so much that they would give their total self for him. Because Satan’s whole wisdom was built on taking and ‘making me No. 1.’

“That’s the reason ‘I’ is the middle letter of the word sin, pride and Lucifer. It’s the deification of the creature. Romans 1:25 says that’s the basis of the lie program. ‘I’ is also the middle of that word ‘lie,’ okay?

“So again, God says, ‘I’ll come and do for man what he can’t do for himself.’ And He does that. He had put man on the earth and said, ‘Adam, go win the earth back; subdue it,’ but how good does Adam do? He doesn’t even last a week. He joins the enemy.

“God says, ‘Okay, I’ll do for man what he can’t do for himself. I’ll be the seed of the woman; the seed of the woman become the seed of Abraham, becomes the seed of David, becomes the seed of Christ.’ He goes to Calvary and He dies and He pays for the sin of the world. Nobody even knew that but God did!

“As we know, Christ then ascends up into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father up there and tells everyone, ‘The wrath’s coming.’ He says, ‘I’m going to do all this,’ and Satan says, ‘You can’t; I got you covered. I’ve got you defeated. You can’t. They’re in sin; they’re my possession.’ Jesus Christ says, ‘Whoa, wait a minute, I’m going to do it.’ Isaiah 49. The devil says, ‘No you can’t.’

“And then God reveals the secret about how, ‘Yes, I can because I got a plan. Satan, you did something (by crucifying Christ on the Cross) that’s going to let me do it and you didn’t even know you were doing it! Why?  Because you’re not as smart as I am.’ It ain’t arrogance if you can do it. There’s an old saying: ‘It ain’t brag if you can do it.’ God did it!

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Jordan concludes, “Now, in the dispensation of the fullness of time what’s His purpose? This is how He got there. His purpose is that He’d gather all things in heaven and in earth under one head—Jesus Christ. The essence of Bible Christianity is that God has one grand purpose--to glorify himself in Jesus Christ and to do it in two spheres—the heaven and the earth.

“Two agencies to accomplish one purpose: Israel in the earth and members of the Body of Christ in the heavens. And that’s why it says He’s ‘blessed us with all spiritual blessings in the heavenly places in Christ.’

“You need to understand the reason He’s forming the Body of Christ is to accomplish that eternal purpose of making Jesus Christ the head of all things. Without the Body, He could be the head of the earth but not the heavens.

“As Ephesians 1:11 says, ‘In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will.’

“This is called ‘the counsel of his will.’ Understand that what that means is you have become, by virtue of being in Jesus Christ, a part of that plan. God has this great cosmic plan for His Son. To be the head of all things and He made you a part of it.

“You’re a part of something big, folks. Don’t stoop along the way to be something else. That’s the mystery of His will. He’s given it to you to know because He’s made you a part of it and that’s who you really are, and that’s why He made you who you really are.”