Oh, the delight of freely KNOWING . . .

Paul writes in Romans 3:24, “Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.”

“The general rule is that adverbs end in ‘ly’ and describe the action of the verb and so freely is an adjective for the verb justified,” explains Jordan. “Our justification’s a gift. God says, ‘I did everything. I’m providing the whole shooting match; it’s yours. I did all this work at Calvary for you and now I’m going to declare you righteous without you doing a thing. It’s a gift and it’s free.’

“The righteousness of God is unto all who believe, but it’s also UPON; it’s put upon all them that believe. Put upon is a state of being: ‘Here I am, this is what I am. I’m righteous.’ The result of having the righteousness of God put on you is justification.

*****

“I’ve prayed all day today as I’ve thought about how I could communicate to you what grace really is. It isn’t something that you can just so much write down as it’s something where I want it to burn in your heart.

“The word ‘grace’ means ‘unmerited favor.’ Now, you need to associate with that the word ‘delight’ because that’s the word that needs to be placed into the definition. It’s favor, but it’s SPECIAL favor and it’s delightfully given. A person can show you special favor and do it begrudgingly, but the Lord doesn’t do that.

“Unmerited means you don’t deserve it, therefore it’s not of works. There’s no works in grace. Grace is the refusal of works because it’s a free gift God’s given to you, therefore you can’t work for it. You work for it and it isn’t a gift.

Romans 11:6 is a verse you need to be familiar with when you try to show someone grace is the absence of works. It says, [6] And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.

“Grace has to do with God’s delight; His free good will to you. Let me give you an illustration. My secretary has a three-year-old grandchild. Robin has a big old fat butterball face, big old golly whoppers of eyes, and she’ll come waddling in, pushing about 12 pounds in front of her, and all she’s got to do is turn that corner into the office and Rosemary just goes bonkers. She can already be happy and cheery, but when Robin walks in she just goes bonkers.

“She’s thrilled to see that kid and out her pocketbook comes and she’s got bubble gum and balloons and toys. You know what that is? That’s delight. That little kid thrills her heart and she finds the most consummate joy in giving to that kid.

“Now, that’s what grace is; it’s that over-abounding delight God has in us. That’s just exactly the way that verse’s used in the Bible. It’s favor, but it’s happy delight. God’s thrilled, overjoyed that He can pronounce you righteous. Do you realize it thrills the heart of God to be able to say, ‘You’re righteous’?

“Man, that’s fantastic. That’s wonderful. God help us that we’d ever try to get in the way of that and put in our works. The message we proclaim is God says, ‘I’ve done everything; you don’t do anything! You just let me delight in giving this to you!’ That’s the gospel of grace.

*****

“Romans 6:22-23 says, ‘But now being made free from sin, and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life.

[23] For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

“People think of eternal life as dying and going to heaven and living with God in heaven forever, but there’s not a verse in the Bible that defines eternal life that way.

“Jesus Christ defines eternal life in John 17:2-3: ‘As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him.

[3] And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’

“Eternal life isn’t just dying and going to heaven and dancing it up around New Jerusalem, kicking up gold dust. Eternal life is to have a personal, intimate, fruit-bearing knowledge of the Father. In the end, the gold of it is that you know the Father in an intimate, everlasting way.

“You don’t just understand what the Father’s plan is and what His will is, you say, ‘Woo-hoo, I get the picture and I LIKE it! I think I’ll just join in and do this! I’ll let the zeal of the Lord of hosts . . . the thing that thrills Him thrill me!’

“It’s your faith resting in the truth of God’s Word, and when your faith rests in God’s grace--who God has made you in Christ--it will bring forth fruit unto God; righteousness unto holiness.

*****

“Holiness is talking about your character; about who you are. You’re someone who’s set apart for the purpose for which God created you. You’re able by the grace of God to bear fruit unto holiness. You’re able to bear activity and growth that represents who God created you in Jesus Christ.

“The word ‘holy’ and the word ‘sanctification’ means to be set apart for the purpose for which it’s created. His character begins to express itself through you and the end is eternal life.

“Look at Jeremiah 9. I try to drill this home to our folks in Chicago all the time. The passage reads, ‘Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:

[24] But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.’

“Glory in the fact that you understand the Lord and that you have an intimate personal knowledge of Him. You understand what He’s about, what He thinks, how He reacts, what He’s planning, and you understand to the point it brings forth fruit in your life. If you’re going to rejoice in something, rejoice in that!

*****

“That thing about ‘exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight’—the key to knowing the Lord, and to knowing God, is to understand what He delights in!

"What is it that thrills His heart? It’s what He’s doing in His Son! If you ask the Father, ‘What is it that thrills you?’ He’ll say, ‘There He is at my right hand.’

“Psalm 40:7-8 is quoted in Hebrews 10 as being a reference to Jesus Christ, but I want you to see how it’s said in Psalms: ‘Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

[8] I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.’

“When the Lord Jesus Christ came, He said to the Father, ‘I delight in what you delight in. I delight in your will! I know what you delight in, Father, and you know what, that thrills my heart, too, and I’m ALL IN for what you delight in!’

“Paul says, ‘Let that mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus.’ Christ gives you the privilege of thoroughly, completely understanding what the Father’s thinking is, what He delights in, what thrills His heart, and He says, ‘Come on and delight in that, too! Get as thrilled about it as He is!’

“In the Bible that’s called God-likeness or godliness. Godliness isn’t just doing what God does; it’s DELIGHTING in it, buying into it. It’s being ALL IN to it like He is.”

(new article tomorrow)

A buckler to all who trust in Him

“Who can cheer the heart like Jesus, By His presence all divine?,” asks Thoro Harris, regarded as one of the most prolific African-American hymn writers of the early 20th century, in his classic from 1931, All That Thrills my Soul. Harris proclaims, “He is more than life to me. And the fairest of ten thousand, In my blessed Lord I see . . .  On His strength divine relying, He is all in all to me.”  

Making Jesus everything, trusting in Him for our all, was a constant theme in Harris’ hundreds of Christian songs. In Hide Thou Me, He writes, “O what a Friend is Jesus sure anchor for my soul, So tender, true and gracious, I'm safe in His control.”

In another classic from 1914, More Abundantly, the refrain goes, “All from Him receiving,
Yield to Him your all; Jesus will accept you When to Him you flee; He will grant His blessing more abundantly.”

*****

The word “trust,” and variations of it, appears in the King James Bible 191 times. A favorite famous quote of mine that I used to keep framed atop my office desk at work read, “Love can be understood only ‘from the inside,’ as a language can be understood only by someone who speaks it, as a world can be understood only by someone who lives in it.”

The author of the quote, renowned American educator and philosopher and author of 40-plus books, Robert C. Solomon, had many thoughts about the nature of trust and how he believed “many people are blind to it.”

Solomon observes, in a quick compilation of quotes from him, “Trust is not bound up with knowledge so much as it is with freedom, the openness to the unknown . . . Trust opens up new and unimagined possibilities . . . True, trust necessarily carries with it uncertainties, but we must force ourselves to think about these uncertainties as possibilities and opportunities, not as liabilities. . . Trust is a skill learned over time so that, like a well-trained athlete, one makes the right moves, usually without much reflection.”

Regarding the trust one can place in God’s Word, Jordan emphasizes, “When you come to a book that you can trust, instead of it disappointing you when you doubt it, you realize the problem was you, not it. You discover that as you keep studying it, you begin to trust it more and more. When you hear me talk about trusting the King James Bible, that’s not because I had some tradition to do that. That comes from almost 50 years of just reading it every day, studying it for what it is and letting it commend itself to me. I tell people all the time, ‘You should believe the bible you’re reading. You should let it tell you about itself.’ ”

II Samuel 22 says, [29] For thou art my lamp, O LORD: and the LORD will lighten my darkness.
[30] For by thee I have run through a troop: by my God have I leaped over a wall.
[31] As for God, his way is perfect; the word of the LORD is tried: he is a buckler to all them that trust in him.
[32] For who is God, save the LORD? and who is a rock, save our God?
[33] God is my strength and power: and he maketh my way perfect.
[34] He maketh my feet like hinds' feet: and setteth me upon my high places.
[35] He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
[36] Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation: and thy gentleness hath made me great.
[37] Thou hast enlarged my steps under me; so that my feet did not slip.”

(new article tomorrow)

Faithful sayings to take to the bank

Four times in Paul’s writings he uses the expression, ‘This is a faithful saying.’

“The idea is, ‘This is something you can count on,’ ” explains Jordan. “A lot of things in the world you can’t count on. You know what a 'saying' is. Brother Mel just this morning was sharing one his mother used to say: ‘When the days get longer the cold gets stronger.’ Whatever that’s supposed to mean.

“When the days start getting longer around the 22^nd of December the cold’s coming in January and February. But the days get really long in July and it’s hot. The saying doesn’t hold continually, but it’s kind of a truism. We have a lot of sayings that aren’t real faithful. A faithful saying is one you can depend on.

“We say, ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ That’s saying you see people out there who are kind of the same. You know, ‘Water seeks its own level.’ But then you see two people who are absolute opposites get together and you say, ‘Opposites attract.’

“Well, which is it? It’s one that fits one situation and another that fits a different situation and we do those kind of things. Down South you used to hear what we call ‘Chimney-corner Scriptures.’ They say, ‘Every tub shall sit on its own bottom.’

“I’ve had people fight me and swear that’s in the Bible when it’s not. Now, the idea is in the Bible. Romans 14:12 says, ‘So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God.’ Chimney-corner Scriptures are truisms and colloquialism but it’s not really Bible. We tell our kids, ‘Cleanliness is next to godliness.’ Well, that’s not really true either, but it’s sure good to tell kids.

*****

“A faithful saying is one that God guarantees to be true every time. There are four times Paul refers to it in four different relationships. The first one is about the gospel. I Timothy 1:15 says, [15] This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.

“The second one is about godliness I Timothy 4:8-9 says, [8] For bodily exercise profiteth little: but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.
[9] This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation.

“The next one is in II Timothy 2 and it has to do with the enduring of suffering. The passage says, [11] It is a faithful saying: For if we be dead with him, we shall also live with him:
[12] If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us:
[13] If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

“The last one is in Titus 3:8: [8] This is a faithful saying, and these things I will that thou affirm constantly, that they which have believed in God might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men.

“You’ll notice all of these sayings are in these personal epistles to Timothy and Titus and are what we call ‘pastoral epistles.’ They are personal epistles written to men who are involved in the work of the ministry of the Body of Christ. When you look at these four topics you’re really looking at the whole gamut of what the Christian life is really all about.

“Everybody ought to be believe I Timothy 1:15. What a wonderful message to proclaim. Everybody ought to believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. Paul said, ‘Of whom I am chief.’ That last little expression there tells you who preaches this message; who brings this message to you. ‘This message is brought to you by,’ and there’s the sponsor: ‘The chief of sinners.’

“When you read that expression ‘chief of sinners,’ always remember this passage: Phil 3:6: [6] Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

“Paul lived a morally upright life. His life was filled with the rectitude of the law. You see, the ‘righteousness’ of the scribes and Pharisees, and Paul identifies himself here as a Pharisee, was having an external, rigid life code. These people, you could go to their home and leave your life savings on the table and when you got back it would be there in as good a condition as when you left it, if not better. These people were righteous in their conduct.

“The word ‘chief’ means to be the first in a line. We talk about an Indian chief. He’s the head of the tribe. We talk about how this is ‘the chief principal’ for which we stand, meaning this is the No. 1 issue in our life.

“If you look at I Timothy 1:16 you see the word ‘first’ again, [16] Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

“That term ‘first’ is the same term as ‘chief’ in verse 15. It means to be the foremost, the one out in the front, the first one. Paul’s talking about being a leader of sinners. He’s saying that in two ways. In verse 13, he says, [13] Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.

“Paul in his life as an unsaved man literally was a blasphemer and a persecutor and an injurious person. He blasphemed the work of God. When you find Paul’s conversion on the Road to Damascus in Acts 9, what you read about is a man who had literally gone and gotten legal documents from the government; John Doe warrants. And he was the government of his nation’s legal representative to go out and persecute people who were followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s literally leading his nation and the world, through them, in rebellion; he was the chief leader of the world’s rebellion against Christ.”

“Notice carefully in I Timothy 1:16, Paul says, ‘for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.’ Not only was he leading the world’s rebellion against Christ, but when he got saved, Christ turned him into the leader of those which would hereafter believe on Christ. God’s grace made him a herald of His grace and a leader of the church the Body of Christ. That’s important because it helps you appreciate what he’s saying when he says ‘it’s a faithful saying.’

*****

"To study the Bible, you take all these little pieces that take 30-45 minutes apiece to study and work out and get into your understanding; that’s a piece. It takes time. I spend at least 20 hours a week just to study, not to prepare and get ready to teach and preach. I usually can get ready to do that in a couple of hours. It doesn’t take a lot of time to do that when you’ve done all the other study. My biggest problem is to cull stuff out, to pick the stuff I want to use out of this big pile of stuff.

“When I lost my Bible, I spent a long time in just a grieving process, not because I lost my Bible, but because I lost YEARS of notes and answers. You work through things and you work it out and you spend a day or two working out a problem and it’s a knotty thing but you work through and get to a conclusion.

“You write the references down and you write a note that explains it and I can read that little note and all that information will pop back up on the screen in my mind.

“When I lost the Bible what kept bothering me is I’d go start studying something, just like I turned to Isaiah 14, and all that study that I’d done in my other Bible where I’d make a note or something.

“What that note does is sort of capsulizes maybe two days of research in a note you’ve made that you can read in 30 seconds and be reminded about. It just sort of summarizes two days of thinking and research and stuff and you’ve got it capsulized down.

“What happens when I lose a little crib note? Well, I can remember most of it, but sometime maybe you didn’t think about that stuff. Maybe you don’t think about it again for two years. And then you come back across that passage of Scripture and study it and you’re trying to figure out something and that stuff you studied two years ago is going to be the key to understanding what you’re trying to figure out today.

“You get there and you say, ‘You know, if I could figure out that little piece of information there, I could answer this and, you know, I figured that out a couple of years ago and it’s written in the margin of that Bible I lost and then you’re depressed again. You’re ready to go kick the car.

“It doesn’t mean you can’t restudy it; it’s an issue of efficiency and time. I don’t like to do something three times. I like to do it once, get it right and then move on. Build on that. That’s what we do when we study.

“You might think, ‘What’s that got to with anything?’ Well, later on that little piece out there that you didn’t know had anything to do with anything, later on you’ll find that it will be a key for you somewhere else and that’s the way you put the Bible together.

“You just keep adding the information, and the bits, and pretty soon it all kind of fills in. When you study something, don’t get discouraged because you can’t right that minute see some practical application into what you already know. Just remember you’re just putting information on the shelf that later on you’ll be able to pull down and use.”

Assyrian to have his own John the Baptist

The great seduction for Israel in the tribulation is their belief that their Messiah has come at last.

“Israel gets in a bind with enemies coming against them and an Assyrian fellow (the Antichrist) comes up and delivers them from war,” explains Jordan. “He takes over the kingdom and the verse in Daniel 11 says, [24] He shall enter peaceably even upon the fattest places of the province; and he shall do that which his fathers have not done, nor his fathers' fathers; he shall scatter among them the prey, and spoil, and riches: yea, and he shall forecast his devices against the strong holds, even for a time.

“Previous to this guy, the Assyrians just came in and militarily defeated Israel and captured them. He’s going to come and DEFEND Israel against the Palestinians, the Persians, the Egyptians all out to destroy them; the sons of Esau and the sons of Lot who try to destroy Israel.

“He not only saves Israel, he enriches them. He gives them great wealth and blessing and prosperity and everybody says, ‘Our Messiah has come!’

“There’s deliverance and he brings peace; he looks like the real thing! He reinstitutes their religion, the Mosaic Law, and rebuilds their temple, and Israel feels like, ‘Boy, we’ve found our Messiah!’ Problem is, he’s the wrong one.

“In I John, II John and III John we learn how to identify the people deceived and those who aren’t; how that Believing Remnant could know for sure they possessed eternal life and were trusting the right Christ, able to identify the wrong one.

"That’s why there’s all those verses about confessing that ‘Christ is come in the flesh.’ I mean, is this guy the Messiah, or did the real Messiah show up 2,000 years ago?

“To trust the one who showed up 2,000 years ago they are going to have walk absolutely, totally by faith in some verses in a Book. To trust the one who’s standing there, they say, ‘Well, there he is!’ and he’s going to do signs and wonders.

*****

“He’s going to have a prophet with him. He’s going to have his John the Baptist and his Pentecost. They'll bring down fire from heaven and do all these miracles and the people will say, ‘Hey, look at the miracles he’s doing!’

“They’re going to follow behind him and check him and it won’t be like Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts and John Hagee; all these guys who profess to have miracles but don’t.

“All the stuff the TV guys profess to have and don’t, this guy will REALLY have and he will be exactly what Deuteronomy 13 warned Israel about when it talks about someone coming along saying they’re a prophet or 'dreamer of dreams' and showing you a ‘sign or a wonder’ and having the 'sign or wonder' comes to pass.

“When John Hagee gets the people down in front of his church and does the stuff he doesn’t show you on his TV show, he touches them with oil and says ‘Heal!’ You know what happens? Well, they just get a little Wesson oil on their forehead, that’s all. It’s nothing.

“When this Assyrian does it, it really works and everybody says, ‘Ooh, got to be real!’ so Jude says, ‘You know, you guys, I’d like to just write to you and talk to you about the stuff back there in Hebrews, and all about the propitiatory work of Christ and what we share in common with Him, but it’s needful that I tell you guys to earnestly contend for the faith. Keep on keepin’ on because, here’s the reason . . .’

"Verses 4-16 of Jude tell why they should contend for the faith and verses 17 to the end tell them how.

*****

“When it says they ‘crept in unawares,’ that’s saying they crawled in; they came in under cover. They didn’t announce their presence. They came in saying one thing but being something else.

“You remember the verse in Matthew where Jesus Christ says, ‘I send you forth as sheep among wolves’? But the wolves are going to have on what? Sheep’s clothing.

"You ever seen a wolf hunker down and slyly creep along on Disney or the Discovery Channel? When a wolf is hunting, he doesn’t just walk right up and go, ‘Ha, Ha!’ These guys come in craftily. They come in slyly. They’re wolves, but they’re in sheep’s clothing.

*****

“It’s through the religious persuasion of the ‘false prophet’ that the Antichrist gathers authority as the counterfeit religious ruler working miracles in the earth and the religion is called ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.’

“That means there is today a whorehouse religion out in the religious system of the world that will ultimately culminate with the religion of the Antichrist, and through it he’ll be proclaimed, not only as Israel’s Messiah, but as the 12th Imam for Muslims.

"He’ll be hailed the conquering hero and sit upon that throne in Jerusalem and declare himself to be God. Such will be the persuasive power of the Lie Program in that day and it will all focus and center in that piece of real estate where civilization began.”

His majesty the low-life worm

“When Paul tells us ‘the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain,’ we call that old age. It’s the line from the song ‘Abide with me’: ‘Change and decay in all around I see.’ That same kind of degeneration of sin has taken place in Satan.

“If you go back and refresh your memory on what the ‘second death’ entails, there’s the degeneration literally of the souls of men back to a form of what the Bible calls a ‘worm,’ where you degenerate right back into that terrible low-life form. Satan is doing that and currently he’s described as a ‘great red dragon.’

“Now, there’s all kind of stuff out there about mythological fire-breathing dragons and it comes from the remnants of truth in history that are fantasized by people who didn’t believe the Bible or history when it confirmed the Bible’s accuracy.

“If you are familiar with a little insect about the size of my thumb called the ‘Bombardier beetle,’ this is not an extinct creature from the past. A Bombardier beetle squirts ‘fire’ that is about 250 degrees hot when it comes out his little ejection tubes.

“He mixes some chemicals together and has an intricate combustion chamber. If you took these chemicals and squirted them onto your hand, it would burn the hide off you. If something like that hit you, you’d say, ‘He’s breathing fire!’ You might not see the flame but, buddy, you’d see the smoke! You’d see the scab it would raise up on you.

“I’m guessing that was going on with some of these pre-Flood creatures on the earth, like dragons—I think the dinosaurs probably could do that same kind of thing.

*****

“In Job 41 you have a description of the Adversary the devil, and the creatures talked about are not prehistoric creatures; they are pre-Flood creatures. Dinosaurs and all those big animals like that you could see live on the earth between the time of Adam and the time of Noah, and then they were on Ark with Noah in baby form.

“You understand you would take a little elephant, not a big one. A little whale, a little giraffe. Anybody with any sense who knows they’re going to be on that boat for awhile, they’d take the little guys who could then get out on the other side and go out and reproduce.

“When they got out on the other side of the Flood, the topography and the climate of the earth was so changed because the earth began to tip on its axis and the polar caps developed.

"The climactic conditions changed so much that the ability of the earth to sustain these creatures decreased until the large ones became extinct and now we claim not to have any of them around anymore.

“By the way, don’t worry about all the so-called dating systems that put them millions and billions of years ago. If you hear somebody try to argue that, just go ‘Ho-hum, anybody got something besides a cartoon to watch?’

“The basic postulate behind all that dating system is that everything has always been the same as it is right now and anybody who rejects catastrophic geology as the method of studying history and geology hasn’t got enough ability to analyze and interpret things for you.

“Uniformitarianism just won’t work. You can’t study the crust of the earth and be an uniformitarian. The Flood in Noah’s day wiped the whole planet out. Things like the Grand Canyon took place from all that water going around the earth and coming back and hitting the earth, drastically changing the typography of the earth.

*****

“Job is a book that describes Satan. Job 41 gives you a picture of Satan in his fallen state and the whole chapter is about him. The chapter starts out, [1] Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?
[2] Canst thou put an hook into his nose? or bore his jaw through with a thorn?
[3] Will he make many supplications unto thee? will he speak soft words unto thee?

“Now all these new bibles say that ought to be a ‘whale’ or a ‘hippo,’ or that kind of stuff. That’s because they don’t understand what it is. It’s a sea monster called a ‘leviathan’ in your Bible.

“Notice (the devil) will make a covenant with Israel in the tribulation and he’ll ‘speak soft words.’ Psalm 55 says his ‘words are smoother than butter.’ ‘Speak soft things to me,’ Isaiah 30 says Israel wants them to do.

“Job 41 goes on to describe who he is and the power and greatness of him. Verse 9 says, [9] Behold, the hope of him is in vain: shall not one be cast down even at the sight of him?
[10] None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?

“What God is saying to Job is, ‘Have you ever tried to go tackle the devil? You ever tried to put a hook in his mouth and lead him around?'

“Listen to me, if you ever saw the devil in his real appearance and he stood before you and appeared to you as he really is, you’d fall down on the floor and beg God to kill you to get you out of his presence, it would scare you so bad.

“God says in verse 10, ‘None is so fierce that dare stir him up: who then is able to stand before me?’ He’s saying, ‘If there’s not anybody on the planet able to stand against the devil, who then is able to stand before me?’

“I mean, if you can’t face the devil and get by, how in the world are you going to face God Almighty?! I mean, the devil’s just a third-rate power next to God. If he’s enough to blow you out of the water, what are you going to do when you face God? That’s the question.”

Meaning of true repentance: 'I am wrong'

“Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years. It means undergoing a kind of death.”—C.S. Lewis

Repentance in the Bible is not sorrow for sin. The Greek word for repentance, “metanoia,” literally means “a change of mind.”

As Paul writes in II Corinthians 7, [9] Now I rejoice, not that ye were made sorry, but that ye sorrowed to repentance: for ye were made sorry after a godly manner, that ye might receive damage by us in nothing.
[10] For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death.

Jordan explains, “Notice sorrow led you to something else, so they’re not the same. The passage is to Believers, so he’s not talking about salvation from hell. He’s talking about salvation from defeat and destruction in the Christian life and overcoming sin. The ‘sorrow of the world’ will ruin you; it will kill your Christian experience to where it falls apart, withers up and dies.

“Repentance brings you to the place of objectively evaluating what you’re doing and doing the right things in response to it and properly going forward. The world’s sorrow is when guilt comes into place, but instead of it being real guilt, it’s the psychological feelings of shame and rejection and fear and lack of self-worth. It’s not true repentance.

*****

In Matthew 26-27, in the momentous events leading up to the Cross, Peter displays godly sorrow that effectively changed him, while Judas represents a false kind of repentance.

"With Judas, it’s the, ‘I’m sorry I got caught; I’m sorry I made a mistake,’ and not an objective recognition of what the real issue is, which is, ‘I am the one who’s wrong; I’m responsible,’ " explains Jordan.

“Matthew 27:3 says, [3] Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders.

“Judas says, ‘I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood.’ That’s a pretty good confession, isn’t it? Is that a true statement? It sure is. Does Judas want to do right? Well, he brings the money back.

“Verse 5 says, [5] And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

“He was pretty sorry for what he did, wasn’t he? I mean, he’s got the remorse of conscience. He goes out and kills himself. That’s being pretty depressed and remorseful for what you did. But that’s the sorrow of the world.

“Judas has all these guilt feelings that come on and he’s crying out, but it’s the repentance of despair. This is just the guilt syndrome. He’s just sorry for the problems he caused; the mistake he made.

“On the other hand, Peter, it says, ‘Went out and wept bitterly.’ You know what I bet Pete did? I bet he went right back to the Garden of Gethsemane he just came out of, over to the very spot where his Savior, his Lord, had been praying and had asked him to pray. I bet Peter got back down on his face in that spot and got the thing right between him and the Lord.

“You know where Judas went? He went to the priest. You ever hear anybody go to confession? Judas went up to a bunch of priests that were called ‘father,’ that wore long black robes and did all kind of little hoodilidoos and they took his confession.

“Now, you know what would make one guy do one thing and another guy do the other? Your heart. Faith. Judas says, ‘I have sinned,’ and he sure had, but he didn’t have the real repentance unto salvation; it was the sorrow of the world that works death and so he goes out and hangs himself.

“By the way, there are seven people in the Bible who say, ‘I have sinned.’ You talk about a good sermon. If you want to study repentance and the different kinds of repentances in the Bible, get your concordance and start back over in Exodus 9 with Pharaoh; it’s just a hypocritical confession of a hardened sinner. In Numbers 22 is Balaam and then there’s Saul in I Samuel 15 and Achan in Joshua 7.

“With David in II Samuel 12 is the repentance of a saint and then there’s the Prodigal Son. He comes and says to the father, ‘I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.’

*****

“When Judas says, ‘I have betrayed innocent blood,’ you ought to write in your margin by that verse Acts 20:28: [28] Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

“I’m sure Judas didn’t fathom what he was saying. You know whose blood it was that was poured out at Calvary? It was God’s blood. There’s not much doubt in my mind why the new bible translations changed that verse.

“Judas didn’t know the half of it. That blood wasn’t just innocent; that was God’s blood. We sing the song, ‘There is a fountain filled with blood Drawn from Emmanuel's veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.’

“Folks, the blood that flowed through Emmanuel’s veins; that’s just another way of saying, like the words on the wall, ‘Unto Him that loved us and washed us from our sins in his own blood.’ That’s a hymn-writer’s poetic way of saying that the blood that is the basis of our salvation was God’s blood. As Matthew 1:23 says, ‘Emmanuel, which being interpreted, is God with us.’

*****

“Now, notice how they responded to Judas in Matthew 27:4: [4] Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

“The chief priests and elders said, ‘What’s that to us?! Big deal, buddy, beat it! You got a problem, go take care of it yourself!’

“That shows you the situation Israel was in. They’re ignoring the fact that Christ was innocent and that Judas was guilty. They just say, ‘Tough apples, man! We know what we want to do and we’re going to go do it!’ They’re out to get it done and they’re going to accomplish it.

The account in Matthew 26 reads, [65] Then the high priest rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.
[66] What think ye? They answered and said, He is guilty of death.
[67] Then did they spit in his face, and buffeted him; and others smote him with the palms of their hands,
[68] Saying, Prophesy unto us, thou Christ, Who is he that smote thee?
[69] Now Peter sat without in the palace: and a damsel came unto him, saying, Thou also wast with Jesus of Galilee.
[70] But he denied before them all, saying, I know not what thou sayest.
[71] And when he was gone out into the porch, another maid saw him, and said unto them that were there, This fellow was also with Jesus of Nazareth.
[72] And again he denied with an oath, I do not know the man.
[73] And after a while came unto him they that stood by, and said to Peter, Surely thou also art one of them; for thy speech bewrayeth thee.
[74] Then began he to curse and to swear, saying, I know not the man. And immediately the cock crew.
[75] And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

*****

“Peter’s saying in verse 74, ‘I don’t know that guy! Get off my back. Leave me alone. I don’t know that sorry bum!’

“There’s a great lesson there. He begins to curse and swear. The reason people curse and use God’s name in vain is they’re trying to show by what authority they speak. They’re trying to invoke the authority of somebody bigger than they are to put other people down and lift them up.

“That’s exactly what Pete’s doing here. You need to remember, people, that what’s in Peter is in you. We’re all kin to Adam and the thing that made Peter do what he did is he got out of sorts and quit walking in the Word of God and in the doctrine Christ kept giving him. Peter kept ignoring it and not paying attention to it and that’s what happened to him.

“Watch the last verse: [75] And Peter remembered the word of Jesus, which said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice. And he went out, and wept bitterly.

“You see that? You know what Peter had been doing ever since verse 31? Christ said, ‘All of you are going to be offended, for it is written,’ and Peter said, ‘I don’t care what anybody else does but I’m not! I don’t care what the Bible says; I’m not going to be offended!’

“Christ said, ‘Pete, before the cock crows three times you’re going to deny me three times,’ and he did. Luke 22:60-62 says, [60] And Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he yet spake, the cock crew.
[61] And the Lord turned, and looked upon Peter. And Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.
[62] And Peter went out, and wept bitterly.

*****

“Can you see the scene? Can you see it in your own life? Here you are out in the flesh, doing it yourself and forgetting about the Word and the doctrine that ought to be operating in you, and all of a sudden the cock crows. And as quick as it does, you know where Peter looked? He looked at the Lord to see if the Lord was looking at him.

“Their eyes met and brother, you talk about some glance! There’s the Lord walking across the porch, tied up, blood on His face, His garments torn, the cock crows, and it’s interesting Peter knew where He was.

“Peter’s out there, ‘Not me, I don’t know Him,’ but he knew right where to look to see Him! He knew what was going on. That’s a look from Jesus Christ that made him go out and weep bitterly. That’s real repentance. That’s a godly sorrow that WORKS repentance.”

“Godly sorrow works repentance and what happened to Peter was he remembered the Word. Somebody said one time, ‘If you have a hard time remembering the Word, get a better look at Christ.’

“That’s what Peter did. He saw the Lord, and when he did he remembered and the Word convicted him and he went out and got right; he changed his mind. What tore him up was not so much what he did, because that wasn’t the issue, but who he was. The godly sorrow worked a change in mind and attitude in him."

New normal: 'Just fake it!'

When I was a kid, my dad would sometimes carry with him the latest issue of the Journal of American Medicine when he thought he was going to have to kill time somewhere. For example, whenever we went to Cedar Point amusement park, only an hour's drive from home, my dad would go off by himself to some air-conditioned theatre or arcade hall, etc., and sit and read JAMA.

On the independent news website Daily Signal was an article last week revealing "The Growing Problem of Fake Science," as the headline read. The piece reported that "respected industry leaders say unseen interests are exerting enormous control over research and what is—or isn’t—published. Their startling claim: that a large percentage of articles in prestigious medical journals are simply not to be believed."

The article went on to state, "Besides Marcia Angell (a former 20-year veteran of the New England Journal of Medicine), another powerful voice is weighing in. The current editor-in-chief of the British journal Lancet, Dr. Richard Horton, wrote a scathing editorial, saying: 'Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Science has taken a turn towards darkness.'"

Just the other week I clicked on an article highlighted on Drudge Report about "Fake Law," where U.S. judges are increasingly falsifying judicial precedent, etc., to support ludicrously unjustifiable, unfair rulings.

*****

My journalism professors at Ohio State would be rolling over in their graves to see what's become of newspapers and news reporting and the absolute abandonment of journalistic principles and ethics.

It was in News Reporting 101 at Ohio State that my favorite professor, Henry J. Schulte, taught us there are two types of people in the world: those who want the truth and those who don’t. The latter prefer to live in a comfortable reality that is perceived by them to promote their best personal interest, etc.

*****

The Bible says the truth of God’s Word will commend itself to a man’s conscience that wants the truth. When it doesn’t commend itself to someone, it’s simply because what the person’s looking for is something different.

The reason God uses words to communicate and do His work is because there’s a spirit transaction that takes place through the sharing of words, ideas and concepts.

“If God is a Spirit, you can understand why He gave you a spirit, because essence needs a point of contact,” explains Jordan. “Your spirit has intelligence; it has intellect. Just like you and I communicate with words and we know things because of the words that we communicate, we know the things of God because God has communicated them to us by words.

“People look for the Spirit of God to be working out in the physical realm, but the Spirit of God, if He’s a Spirit, is going to work with your spirit. The spirit is what gives humans the capacity to communicate with each other and with God.

“Now, lost people can’t communicate with God, but their spirit still works; they can communicate with other humans with their spirit as well as ‘the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience.’ ”

"The spirit is connected to the soul, which represents each person’s own personal identity. The soul has a bodily shape and the capacity to animate the body and use the body as a vehicle.

"This is something people don’t grasp the reality of: It’s your soul that goes to hell and there’s a spiritual fire in the spiritual realm that will torment the soul the same as a fire in the physical realm will torment the flesh."

(new article tomorrow)

Skill in, 'What doesn't kill you . . . '

Bible-believers understand like no one else that the political structure of our country and this planet is controlled by “the prince of this world,” i.e. Satan.

“We live in a culture that’s running headlong into greater and greater evil, debauchery, violence, corruption--polluted by what (Robert) Bork calls 'modern barbarians,' " says Jordan. "When the Apostle Paul writes the things he does about being a good citizen, living in a society—Paul was in a culture every bit as pagan and morally bankrupt as ours is today.

“In Philippians 2:14, Paul says, ‘Do all things without murmurings and disputings: That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.’

“That’s how you do it and you see from the passage, Paul’s not telling them to go out and fight by political means. He says we're to hold up some LIGHT that gives life.

“Paul says in Titus 3, ‘Put them in mind to be subject to principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready to every good work, To speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men.’

“The message is, ‘Go out and be good citizens in the world; go out and live in the culture, as pagan and wicked and evil as it is; go out there and live in it as a Believer.’

*****

“You've got to have the divine viewpoint of tribulations to be BOLD in tribulation. When the problems come, you look at them and, by relying on God’s Word and a clear understanding of what we are because of who we are in Christ Jesus, we can endure with peace under whatever the pressure there is.

"What that does is give you skill; ability in handling bigger problems—even greater problems. And that results in hope and confidence in the Lord’s working.

“Of course, people say, ‘Well, wait a minute, if it results in me being able to handle bigger problems, what happens?’ A bigger problem comes.

“I’ve seen saints of God handle problems and I look at them and I say, ‘You know, if that thing was on my shoulders it would kill me.’ Now, you know how they got so they can handle that kind of problems? Handle littler ones.

“Listen, people, talk’s cheap. It isn’t easy. It hurts sometime and it’s inconvenient, but we don’t work by feelings, do we?

*****

“Romans 5:3-5 says, [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.

“Now, that will bring you to a place where all of a sudden you can appreciate the love that God has for us in a way that you never could appreciate it before. You see, all those things demonstrate God’s love. And you say, ‘Are you sure about that, Charlie?’

“ . . . If I ask you on a test what does ‘agape love’ mean, the answer is it’s a 'mental-attitude love of value and esteem.' That definition is by W.E. Vines.

“By ‘knowing that tribulation worketh patience and patience experience and experience hope and hope maketh not ashamed,’ we’re learning how much God loves us; how highly it is that He values and esteems us.

*****

“That ‘shed abroad’ is like a great river coursing and flowing over our soul. It just comes in and courses in and flows in over us.

“It’s just the love of God completely flowing over you and refreshing you. It’s the Holy Spirit that takes all of these things as they happen to us; that takes the Word of God that we understand and build up in our soul, and we’re strengthened by His Spirit in the inner man. There’s strengthening when you keep relying on the Book and it’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

“You and I have a hope that the world doesn’t have, but we’ve also been ‘left’ in this world. If the world has trouble, they can’t boast in the trouble; that’s just what comes. But we’re able to boast in the trouble.

“So He leaves us here and we suffer the common lot of the world, but whereas the world wrings its hands and says, ‘Oh, me, oh my,’ we look at it and say, ‘We know these ‘problems’ WORK; they have a purpose in our life. We know what’s going on! We know where we’re going and we know who we are.' ”

(new article tomorrow)

The elephant in the realm

As the “prince of this world,” a title used by Jesus Himself in John 14:30, Satan is the one who controls the political systems of this world; the government of this world. They’re his.

“Satan and his angels are the ones behind the idolatry of the nations,” writes Keith Blades in his classic book, Satan and His Plan of Evil. “The ‘course of this world’ is the issue of this world’s onward movement and the path that it is following as it proceeds on . . . Paul says not only was a ‘course’ of open rebelliousness and unrighteousness charted by (Satan), but included in it was also the issue of appalling ungodliness that would see man transferring to Satan himself the worship and service that rightfully only belonged to God.”

Paul writes in Ephesians 2:2, [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.

“The prince is the chief ruler and ‘the prince of the power’ is the governmental authority, but the air is the invisible realm,” explains Jordan. “He’s not only the prince of this world that you can see out there in the government, he’s ‘the prince of the power,’ or the governmental authority in the invisible realm. He’s the chief ruler of the governmental authority in the invisible realm, too. He controls the government in the heavenly places. He’s the one who has usurped that position and sits as the head of the government in the heavens. That was Satan’s ORIGINAL plan; his original plot.

*****

“Isaiah 14 informs, [12] How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
[13] For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
[14] I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

“Here’s the plan he developed that resulted in his fall. Notice, Satan has a throne; a position of governmental authority that belongs to him. He said, ‘I’m going to rule those guys.’

“The ‘mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north,’ is a place where the worship of God takes place in the universe. There’s this mountain, this planet in the universe out there, where the angelic creation comes and the congregation is gathered together to give account of their stewardship of their position and their responsibility.

“You remember what happened to Job? That time when the angels of God came to appear before God and Satan came with them? With this mount of the congregation, Satan said, ‘I’m going to take that thing over. I’m going to exalt myself above the angels and have them follow me, take orders from me; I’m going to sit in judgment of them. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I’m going to go up there and let them worship me.’

“His desire is to take over all the positions of God in the government out there. That word power there has to do with delegated authority. Satan says, ‘I have power to do this.’ It’s government. It’s about having underlings to do the jobs and to carry on the activities for the throne.

“We forget that God has a government in the heavens just like he has a government on the earth and he uses terminology about ‘thrones, dominions, principalities,’ that describe the government in such a way that we can understand them.

“God created an earthly and a heavenly governmental structure. If you can understand the ones on the earth and that there’s a correspondence to the heavens, you can understand how it works up there. We know the one in the heaven is the same way because He uses exactly the same terminology to describe it.

******

“Paul writes in Colossians 1:20, 'And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.'

“The Greek word for reconcile is ‘katallasso’ and it means to change somebody’s status; to change their state. ‘Oppo katallasso’ is the word used in Colossians and it means to ‘change their state in more than one way.’

“What Paul’s talking about in verse 20 is when God goes out and reconciles the system; it’s that future reconciliation of the SYSTEM of government. He’s going to reconcile them in two ways.

“No. 1, as Revelation 12 says, God’s going to go up there and take Satan and his angels and cast them out and the verse says that neither was their place, meaning their position, ‘found any more in heaven.’ He casts them down and they don’t have any more authority, no more right to fill the positions in heaven anymore.

“No. 2, He’s going to put some new people in those positions. That’s what He formed the Body of Christ for, folks! You see, if He just wanted to save you and keep you out of hell, He didn’t have to form the Body of Christ to do that.”

*****

As Blades writes, “The revelation of the ‘mystery of Christ’ has not only taken Satan by surprise in declaring that God will repossess the heavenly places as well as the earth, but it has also declared how God will even reconcile the heavenly places unto Himself first.

“Therefore, what Satan never thought he could lose, not only will be taken from him, but it will be taken from him first, before the earthly realm is repossessed.

“The reconciliation of the heavenly places will likewise involve the Lord personally entering into the heavenly places arrayed for the battle. The Lord will have armies with Him, which will follow Him and be utilized by Him, both in the battle and the eviction. Michael, the archangel, as the head of the Lord’s angelic host, will lead the Lord’s armies into the battle.

“‘War in heaven’ is just what takes place as the Lord ’s Day of reconciliation commences. Upon Satan and his angels’ eviction, as John states, ‘neither was their place found any more in heaven.’

“They will be banished and have no more place there because God will have reconciled that realm unto Himself. He will have installed His ‘new creation,’ the church the Body of Christ, into the governmental positions of principalities, mights, thrones, and dominions that exist there. Hence, their place truly will be found no more.”

Paul's bout of depression

Reading from a news article in Monday’s local paper, our Ladie’s Meeting speaker last night at church informed us that the World Health Organization estimates 322 million people are “living with depression, making it the leading cause of ill health and disability worldwide.”

I find it interesting that some Bible scholars reason that depression as a human condition dates back to the beginning with Adam and Eve and what they must have experienced after they “fell” and were expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Most lists you see on men of the Bible who dealt with depression always include Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Job, Jonah and Jeremiah. In talking to a friend the other day on this very subject, she was surprised to hear me include the Apostle Paul’s name as a one-time sufferer. Then I reminded her about Titus.

*****

While the Book of II Corinthians as a whole reveals the darkest hour of Paul’s ministry, he tells us specifically in II Corinthians 2:12-13 about what had him the most anxious and torn up: “Furthermore, when I came to Troas to preach Christ's gospel, and a door was opened unto me of the Lord,
[13] I had no rest in my spirit, because I found not Titus my brother: but taking my leave of them, I went from thence into Macedonia.”

Jordan observes, “Notice how Paul leaves the new converts there?! Instead of pressing the work forward at this new church he’s started, he leaves because of his personal concerns about Titus. He’s thinking, ‘Where’s Titus?! He didn’t show up! Has something happened to him and our enemies assaulted him? He’s going around with the collection for Jerusalem—has somebody robbed him?! Is he laying dead in a ditch somewhere?!’

“I mean, Paul’s wound up in worry, and of course, in chapter 7, he finds Titus and is much encouraged, but here in the midst of all this he doesn’t know what’s going on.

"There’s been this great stir at Ephesus by the opposition there. The people were worshipping Diana and all that stuff. There’s this constant uncertainty and fear about Paul's own situation and about the situation with Titus and he’s all concerned for Titus’ safety.

“I say that to remind you that there are things going on in this passage that are very similar to your life, because when you get to verse 14, everything turns around: [14] Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place.

"You look at verse 12 and 13 and do you see any triumph? Not much. Even when you say, ‘Well, a church is getting established!’ . . . yeah, but Paul’s leaving them! I mean, he doesn’t even stay there to finish the job.

*****

"What’s particularly telling is how Paul expounds on his circumstances in II Corinthians 7:5-6: ‘For, when we were come into Macedonia, our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears. Nevertheless God, that comforteth those that are cast down, comforted us by the coming of Titus.'

“Notice the way he describes himself. Cast down. That’s a way of saying he was depressed. If you come back to chapter 4, he describes it in vivid terms. He says, ‘We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed; troubled at every hand.’

“So he’s troubled, perplexed, persecuted, and he’s cast down. You ever been there? I enjoy II Corinthians frankly because all these things Paul’s experiencing, I’ve known about them first-hand.

“Paul’s going through a period of tremendous personal upheaval as well as ministry upheaval. He just got down in the dumps. You ever get punked out? Just tired and ‘take this job and shove it’ kind of a thing? Well, that’s the way Paul was. Maybe you don’t think of the great apostle—the great man of God with the power of God working in his life—getting down in the dumps, punked out and wanting to quit?

“He’s all tore up inside, internally. Verse 7:5 says he was ‘troubled on every side; WITHOUT were fightings, within were fears.’ You remember how we looked back in Acts 19 about that big stir at Ephesus and all? In chapter 1, he said ‘we had the sentence of death within ourselves.’ Paul literally faced the possibility of being assassinated and murdered at that time, and he said ‘within were fears.’

*****

“If you go back to Acts 18 when Paul’s at Corinth the first time, the Lord actually had to appear to him personally and say to him, ‘Be of good cheer—nobody’s going to do you any harm here.’ He wrote (the saints) in I Corinthians 2 that ‘I was with you in much fear and trembling and weakness.’

“We usually think of the apostles as people that never met anybody they weren’t the match for. They never were hesitant; they never had their back up. They were always just bold as a lion going through tearing up town, and it really wasn’t that way with Paul. It’s always fascinated me that the Lord had to do this with Paul in Acts 18.

“Acts 18:9-10 reports, ‘Then spake the Lord to Paul in the night by a vision, Be not afraid, but speak, and hold not thy peace:

[10] For I am with thee, and no man shall set on thee to hurt thee: for I have much people in this city.’

“Now, the Lord doesn’t appear to you and to me like that today. These are special interventions, but just imagine the Lord looks at Paul and sees the need to come and tell him this. He had to have been in terribly difficult straits and Christ says, ‘Be not afraid.’ Well, obviously he had been afraid! He says, ‘But speak and hold not thy peace.’ Obviously Paul was tempted just to be quiet.

“The satanic attack against the Body of Christ is two-fold. Plan A: Attack the message; corrupt the message. Get somebody to mess up the message so the message isn’t clear.

“If that won’t work, go to Plan B: Attack the messenger; discourage, discredit, get him to quit talking.

“Just the fact Christ had to say that to Paul—‘Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna hurt you,’ means obviously people we’re trying to!

*****

“Even in Paul’s darkest hour personally of his ministry, he never quit preaching the gospel. Remarkably, he was also able to establish a church at Troas.

“We’ve seen already that Paul wrote the book of II Corinthians during the time period of Acts 20:1, in which it says,  ‘And after the uproar was ceased, Paul called unto him the disciples, and embraced them, and departed for to go into Macedonia.
[2] And when he had gone over those parts, and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece,
[3] And there abode three months. And when the Jews laid wait for him, as he was about to sail into Syria, he purposed to return through Macedonia.’

“It’s this period of time here where he writes II Corinthians. He’s preached in Troas and as he sails back . . .  that’s where he went and preached in the third loft and Uticus falls out and is dead and he raises him from the dead. That’s at Troas.

“So in spite of the depression, and the darkness, and the difficulties, and ‘the fightings without and the fears within,’ Paul still stuck at it and preached. He didn’t quit in spite of his own personal feelings of inadequacy and the, ‘I don’t want to do this anymore.’ He kept at it and the result was a church got started. And he visits that church on the return visit.

“You know what changed Paul’s attitude from verse 12 and 13—the depression—to the triumph in verse 14? You see those two words 'in Christ'? There’s a deliberate contrast put here.

“The negative tone of verse 12 and 13 changes to the tone of victory in verses 14-16. You see that second word ‘thanks’ in verse 14? That’s where it came from! You see the thing that changed the negatives to the victories is ‘now THANKS be unto God.’

“That’s a mental attitude and the mental attitude changed the fears within. He took his eyes off his problems, took his eyes off his feelings and what was going on around him and he looked away to who he was in Christ and what God was doing in him in Christ. When you take your eyes off of you and you look to Christ, it’s easy to give thanks. There’s a lot there to give thanks for.”