Talking the same vocabulary

The so-called Apostle’s Creed says Jesus died, was buried, descended into hell and then rose again the third day.

“In Roman theology, Jesus Christ didn’t finish the work at the Cross; all of His suffering wasn’t over yet,” explains Jordan. “They say He descended into hell and had to continue suffering after the Cross. In fact, they teach that He’s suffering even today.

“That’s why you have the Mass continuously done. Their brag is that somewhere on the earth at every moment of every day (with the Mass) the suffering of Christ continues. Listen, all the suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ was over when He said, ‘It’s finished.’

“Christ said to the thief on the Cross, ‘Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.’ Hell in time past had two compartments—torment and paradise, or Abraham’s bosom side—and Jesus Himself says He went to the Abraham’s bosom side, and if you know better than what He knew, you can deal with Him about that; I’ll just go by what He said. When King David writes in the psalms, ‘Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell,’ he was talking about the paradise side of hell.

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“God says in Deuteronomy 32:22, [22] For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

“Notice there are levels of descent in hell. In Ephesians, Paul talks about descending into ‘the lower parts of the earth.’ That means there’s more than one strata, one layer, one compartment. There are levels of the structure in the heart of the earth where the dead go in hell.

In Psalm 63:8, David pens to God, [7] Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.
[8] My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me.
[9] But those that seek my soul, to destroy it, shall go into the lower parts of the earth.
[10] They shall fall by the sword: they shall be a portion for foxes.
[11] But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.

“Notice it says they ‘fall by the sword.’ When they’re killed, what happens to them? They go into the lower parts of the earth. The idea there is they’re going to go to the grave.

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“If you read through that psalm, you’ll discover there are a number of allusions. When David ‘talks,’ he does what we do a lot of the time; he will make allusions to the Scripture. It’s sort of like it’s in his vocabulary.

“We do that. We talk Bible all the time. A lot of times you don’t even know you’re talking Bible. You say, ‘I missed getting run over by the skin of my teeth.’ Did you know you were quoting the Book of Job when you said that?

“Jesus said, ‘That every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment.’ Some guy says, ‘I don’t believe the Bible,’ and I think, ‘Why do you quote it so often then?’ ‘Well, I didn’t know I was quoting it.’ Well, that’s just because you’re dumb. Ignorance is bliss for folks who are ignorant.

“When David talks about going into the lower parts of the earth, that’s an allusion back to Numbers 16 when the sons of Korah were fighting with Moses about who was the big dog in Israel and God tells Moses what’s going to happen to them.

“Starting in verse 31, it says, [31] And it came to pass, as he had made an end of speaking all these words, that the ground clave asunder that was under them:
[32] And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up, and their houses, and all the men that appertained unto Korah, and all their goods.
[33] They, and all that appertained to them, went down alive into the pit, and the earth closed upon them: and they perished from among the congregation.
[34] And all Israel that were round about them fled at the cry of them: for they said, Lest the earth swallow us up also.

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“Every action, everything you see out in the world, comes from a spiritual source. The Bible says ‘out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.’ Jesus said it’s out of the heart that come the things that defile a man, and then He lists all kind of perverted activity, but they come from within.

“Even with creation—in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth and how did He create it? Genesis 1:3 says, [3] And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

“You see, the physical creation is the physical manifestation of the spiritual life and worth that God spoke. Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.’ By the way, that’s why there are two realms--heaven and earth. That’s why there’s the natural and the spiritual. That’s why there’s Israel and the Body of Christ. It takes the two things to make the whole.

“Genesis 1:2 says, ‘[2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

“It had no shape. If something has a shape, it has a purpose. The earth didn’t have any functionality. And it was void, meaning it was vain; it was empty. It was total chaos and darkness; the absence of anything God has to say; the judgment of God for sin—‘darkness upon the face of the deep.’

“By the way, you know the sun isn’t created until the fourth day. Sometime people argue, ‘Well, see there, how could you have light when you don’t have the sun?!’ Well, you know, a three-year-old knows that all light doesn’t come from the sun. We got lights all over the room here.

“We have all kind of different lights. What God’s doing on the first day is making sure you understand there’s a distinction between light and darkness and that distinction is so important that that’s all you read about in this text on the first day.

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“All Moses is doing in that first part of Genesis 1 is trying to show them God says, ‘Look, first thing you need to know about creation is there’s light and there’s darkness. There’s my presence, my purpose, my wisdom, knowledge and understanding in my creation, and there’s the judgment that comes about when I’m not there. And when I’m not there, and my wisdom, knowledge and understanding is not in my creation, you’ve got DARKNESS!’

“What we’re talking about is, if that physical darkness comes about because of the judgment of God, well then there’s a spiritual thing that’s BEHIND all of that. So light and darkness . . .

“We’re not talking about the false duality of paganism. They have this thing called ‘dualism’ where you have to have equal and opposite forces in order to produce this esoteric balance of the universe. You have to have the yin and the yang and all that stuff. That’s not what this is.

“You don’t have two opposite forces; you have the presence of God and His knowledge, and you have the absence of God and the result of that. It’s really God’s judgment on rebellion and Satan seeks to rule the world without God.

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“Satan has no power to create. You, as a human, don’t have the power to create anything. You just use what’s there. You utilize what God already created. You act on it, you rearrange it, you distort it, you pervert it, but you don’t create it.

“Satan seeks to be his own god and steal stuff—that’s called rebellion! In that darkness, the extent of that rebellion is more than just man because it began before man—it began with Satan.

“Satan told Eve that God didn’t want her to eat of the tree ‘lest you be as the gods.’ The reason that word ‘gods’ is plural is because it’s equally available to Adam and Eve.

“When people are always talking about egalitarianism, or how everything’s equal, that comes out of Genesis 3:5: [5] For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

“Satan’s saying, ‘You can be as, you can have the character of God. You can have it, Adam can have it,’ and we have all these little gods out here that all think they’re God and they worship and serve the creature—themselves—more than the Creator. Eve could look out and see all those gods, the fallen angels, creatures in the angelic realm.

“Why would you want to stop and be like them when they were already made in the image and likeness of God?! You see, they ALREADY had the image of God because that’s how they were made. They didn’t need to become something. That’s the difference between law and grace. It goes all the way back to the very beginning.

“Job 15 says, [11] Are the consolations of God small with thee? is there any secret thing with thee?

[12] Why doth thine heart carry thee away? and what do thy eyes wink at,
[13] That thou turnest thy spirit against God, and lettest such words go out of thy mouth?
[14] What is man, that he should be clean? and he which is born of a woman, that he should be righteous?

[15] Behold, he putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight.
[16] How much more abominable and filthy is man, which drinketh iniquity like water.”

“Mankind is not clean but, look, the heavens aren’t clean either! There are creatures in the heaven that are fallen and are as filthy and vile as you and I are. The kingdom of darkness extends all the way out through the creation.”

(to be continued tomorrow …)