Only one indelible masterpiece

All through the Old Testament the Word of God is called "the book." What began with Moses’ writings is added to and added to, with the Levite priests in charge of collecting it together, getting it copied and distributed and seeing that it was perfectly maintained.

“The nation of Israel had vast archives of writings; you look in I and II Chronicles and I and II Kings and you see constant references that it’s written in ‘the book of this’ and it’s written in ‘the book of that,’ ” explains Jordan. “They had tremendous written histories available to them and those priests selected out of the writings the things that were the Word of God and put them in the Ark of the Covenant and identified them.”

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The books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John represent the four prophetic portraits of Jesus Christ but they are in no way designed to be the complete biographies.

As John 21:25 says, “And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.”

“The Four Gospels themselves recognize that they are not complete biographies,” explains Jordan. “Four would not be enough. Thousands would be too few to contain it all.

“So what you’re reading in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John is an inspired prophetic portrait of the Savior that demonstrates the selectivity of God’s design.

“He picked out certain things to record about the earthly ministry of Christ because there were things in the Scripture that told Israel: ‘Be looking for this so this shows up. Be looking for that so that shows up.  Be looking for the other so the other shows up.’ There’s symmetry between what prophecy told Israel to be looking for and what you find in the Gospel accounts of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

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“Paul tells us in Romans 15:8 that Jesus Christ in His earthly ministry was a minister. He was a prophet, priest and king. He lived and ministered in His earthly life under the ‘time past’ regime where God dealt with men on the basis of distinction between the circumcision and the uncircumcision.

“You go back in these books—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John—and if you don’t understand where they fit, you’re going to try to take things out of them, and make them work, and practice them in your life, all because Jesus said them.

“The thing you need to remember, and man-up about this spiritually, is He didn’t say those things to you and me today. He said those things to the nation Israel and He said those things to people who came to God through the nation Israel.

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“When Paul says, ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God,’ he’s saying God’s the one who gives the blessing, not based on your merit, but on His giving. ‘For we are his workmanship.’ This is His doing.

“That word ‘workmanship’ (Eph. 2:10) there is talking about a work of art. A masterpiece. Preachers like to point out that the Greek word that’s translated there is the word we get our term ‘poem’ from.

“That word comes over in English as ‘poem.’ You’re His work of art. You’re literally the form through which He’s going to express Himself. A masterpiece is something you do to make yourself known.

“Paul only uses the Greek term twice. Romans 1:19 says, ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.’

“Everybody knows something about God. He’s manifest in them. Romans 2:14 says, ‘For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves.’

“You see God has indelibly printed into the heart of man, all men, some information. He manifested Himself. Everybody knows there’s a God.

“You have to educate yourself out of that, and what the educated guy says is, ‘Well, if you want to be sophisticated and educated, you have to get over your primordial tendency to believe in the superstitious idea of something bigger than you.’

“To get over that is to get over the mystery of life itself and to become nothing but a crass materialist where the only thing that’s real is what you can hold in your hand, and you believe in the survival of the fittest even though you’re never going to be the fittest so you’re never going to survive. It doesn’t add to life; it detracts!

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“You can look at creation and see the wisdom, knowledge and understanding of God; the fact there’s a Creator revealed right there and that term ‘things that are made’ is a translation of exactly the same word in Ephesians 2 about workmanship.

“Creation is God’s workmanship. It’s His masterpiece that demonstrates His wisdom, His understanding, His knowledge. He’s placed it in the creation.

“When you look at the creation, what you’re seeing is God manifest His wisdom, His knowledge, His purpose, what He’s accomplishing. You find out about Him!”

“The Lord came to Solomon at night in a dream and said, ‘Solomon, what can I give you? I’ll give you riches and power—whatever you want,’ and Solomon answered, ‘I want wisdom.’

“Then the text says Solomon awoke and what he’s saying is, ‘You know, it doesn’t help you to work incessantly; stay up all night, get up early to go to work, work through all kinds of difficult, sorrowful, hard, painful experiences. That's because God gives you His gifts when you’re not working at all. When you aren’t conscious. You’re asleep.’

“I thought about that; it’s not of works. It’s His workmanship, not of us. This stuff all comes from Him. Think back through Scripture. When did God give Adam Eve? When did He cut the covenant with Abraham? He put him in a deep sleep. I mean, Solomon isn’t the only one in Scripture that that’s true of, and that’s why God wrote it like He did.”

(new article tomorrow)