'Friends' who rule them (but hate them)

Demons come along at the outset as “familiar spirits,” meaning they put up a friendly facade, introducing themselves in a deceptive manner in order to hook humans.

God warns in Leviticus 19, “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards, to be defiled by them: I am the LORD your God.”

“These spirits don't come in like fire-breathing enemies; they get to be friendly with you first,” explains Jordan. “They come in like, ‘Hey, have I got a deal for you!’

“They want you to come and participate with them in what they’re doing so they court you, deceiving you. That's why the Bible calls them a ‘lying spirit.’

“They corrupted the nation Israel away from the truth into a lie program using their supernatural means. You don't do that unless you come in and trick people.

*****

“In Luke 8, Jesus Christ heals a man so completely riddled with unclean, disembodied spirits, or demons, he's called ‘Legion.’

“The unclean spirit doesn't really like this guy, and you have to understand, demons hate people. They want to torture and destroy them.

“Satan, his angels, and the demonic spirits, would destroy every human being if they could. They have a very special hatred for humans that is indescribably bitter.

  

*****

“God warns in Leviticus 20:6, “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go a whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

“A wizard is always a man, and a witch is a woman, and they are the willing participants and mediums for evil spirits.

“The reference to them going ‘a whoring,’ is not meant in the physical sense of adultery and fornication; it's spiritual. But it will result in the other.

“Jeremiah talks about people committing adultery with the ‘other gods’—spiritual adultery. Israel was married to the Lord; they were to be faithful to Him and when they went after other gods, it was considered they broke their marriage covenant with God; they were adulterers. That's what the Book of Hosea is about.

*****

“Demons originate with the fallen angels, identified as the ‘sons of God’ in Genesis 6, who ‘intermingle’ with human females in the years preceding the Flood to produce offspring of giants on the earth who  ‘became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.’

“These angels, we learn from Jude 6, left their positions as angels in their ‘first estate,’ or the habitation God gave them to live and function in up in heaven, and came down to earth to go ‘after strange flesh,’ thereby corrupting the ‘seed of the woman’ in fulfillment of a Satanic plot.

“From Genesis 3:15, we’re given the first hint of God’s intention to produce a Coming Redeemer through the seed of the woman.

*****

“With the Flood, some of Satan’s angels were immediately relegated to chains of darkness in hell, but others, according to Psalm 82:7, died like men. These were likely ‘the sons of God,’ or at least their offspring.

“Their bodies are down there in that ‘deep’ at the bottom of the universe (Psalm 136:6, Rev. 20:13), where the lake of fire's going to be, but their spirits are loose today—disembodied.

“They're loose, and have been, and will be until the Second Coming of Christ when they're all bound up and cast into the pit.

*****

“When the Gospel accounts refer to them as ‘unclean spirits,’ it’s a reference back to Genesis 9 and the corruption, violence and rebellion they instigated in the earth and have been committed to ever since.

“What we know about these disembodied spirits, who seek to reside in animals and humans, is they possess literal personalities, super-human strength, intelligence, emotions and an affinity for fire, water and high places.

“From a passage in Luke 8, we see a demon has the intellectual capacity to recognize who Jesus Christ is and, as a result, becomes fearful, crying and falling down because he knows he’s going to be tormented.

“It’s fascinating that the evil spirit knows what’s going on and has the wisdom to know who Christ is. In the Matthew account, he asks, ‘Have you come to torment us before the time?’

“This shows he knows the dispensational time out there where there’s going to be a war between his side and God’s side—between Satan’s angels and his troops and the Lord and his angels and his troops.

*****

“Acts 16:16 tells of a ‘certain damsel possessed with a spirit of divination,’ showing there’s a demonic ability to tell the future.

“In Acts 19:11, we see the evil spirits weren’t fooled by the exorcists, who were false prophets, showing a capacity for discernment.

“These are not just influences; they are REAL specific, personal beings. It’s not some mystical, ‘woo-woo-woo’ kind of thing. These are real creatures just like you and I are real.

*****

“From the beginning of Israel’s history the nation has been under Satanic attack. His approach has been to corrupt them spiritually so they can’t be used by God to accomplish His purpose with them in the earth.

“The same attack exists today against the Body of Christ and that’s exactly what Paul warns about in I Timothy 4:1: ‘Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.’

“The way he corrupts is with doctrinal corruption, so that Believers, rather than standing and living in the identity they have in Christ, live like Israel did, or like the Gentiles who lived in the ‘vanity of their minds.’

“That’s what Paul means in II Timothy 2:24 when he says they ‘oppose themselves.’ They've been caught in snare of the devil; drawn away from the truth and what's right with the promise of some physical, delightful, experiential thing.”

(new article tomorrow)

Souls deceived in Billy Graham's wake

When I was a kid, Billy Graham was revered by my dad and grandmother. My dad would always have us watch any crusade rebroadcasts on TV. He often said it was a big wish of his that each of us kids would one day attend a Graham stadium event and walk the aisle to the center to openly acknowledge our faith. My grandmother loved to play George Beverly Shea records on her record player.

In all the media's endless references to Graham as a friend and "spiritual advisor" to presidents since Dwight Eisenhower, I haven’t heard it mentioned that President Harry Truman actually denounced Graham once as a "counterfeit" and publicity seeker.

Of course, there’s seemingly endless material to explain to a person why Graham was an apostate preacher. In one website alone, Biblical Discernment Ministries, is a gold mine.

Here are just some examples:

-- In 1966, Graham was asked in a panel discussion led by the apostate United Church of Christ, "Do you think a literal belief in the Virgin birth—not just as a symbol of the incarnation or of Christ's divinity—as an historic event is necessary for personal salvation?"

Graham's answer: "While I most certainly believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, I do not find anywhere in the New Testament that this particular belief is necessary for personal salvation."

-- In a 1978, Graham, in an interview with McCall's Magazine, endorses pantheism as a means to achieve salvation without Jesus Christ. He is quoted in the article as saying,

"I used to think that pagans in far-off countries were lost—were going to hell—if they did not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them. I no longer believe that. . . I believe there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God—through nature, for instance—and plenty of other opportunities, therefore, of saying yes to God."

-- In a Time magazine article from 1993, Graham denies a literal hell. He says in the article, "The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from His light, from His fellowship. That is going to hell. When it comes to a literal fire, I don't preach it because I'm not sure about it. When the Scripture uses fire concerning hell, that is possibly an illustration of how terrible it's going to be -- not fire but something worse, a thirst for God that cannot be quenched."

--In  1985, when asked by a newspaper reporter from the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, ""What about people of other faiths who live good lives but don't profess a belief in Christ?" Graham replied, "I'm going to leave that to the Lord. He'll decide that."

-- In 1993, Graham said to David Frost in a television interview, "And I think there is that hunger for God and people are living as best they know how according to the light that they have. Well, I think they're in a separate category than people like Hitler and people who have just defied God, and shaken their fists at God. ... I would say that God, being a God of mercy, we have to rest it right there, and say that God is a God of mercy and love, and how it happens, we don't know."

-- From a 1998 interview on CNN's "Larry King Live," came this exchange where Graham suggests not only a belief in reincarnation (I guess, but for sure it's not biblical since our soul is the only eternal part of humans) but in a heaven devoted to man's sexual lusts:

GRAHAM: I'll know Him. He'll know me. He will receive me. I believe the moment I die, an angel comes and takes my hand and leads me into His presence.

 KING: In your body or through a soul?

GRAHAM: Both -- maybe both, because we have been resurrected. Remember, this body's coming back together again. Nothing ever disappears ...

KING: All right. You'll meet Jesus and then what will it be like? What will paradise be like?

GRAHAM: It's going to be like paradise. It'll be the -- everything that you ever wanted for happiness will be there. People say that the Bible teaches there's no sex in Heaven. If sex is necessary for our happiness and fulfillment, it'll be there. And then, if certain other things that we think are pleasurable will -- it'll be there.

-- In 1993, Graham attended a prayer breakfast in which President Clinton participated. Senator John Kerry read from John 3:1-21 in the Bible, but purposefully skipped verse 3:16, which says, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Kerry then explained Christ was speaking of "spiritual renewal" and that "in the spirit of Christ . . . Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, Christian" were meeting and "there is renewal . . . with a new President and Vice President. . ."

Graham added, "I do not know a time when we had a more spiritual time than we've had today."

-- From published accounts in 1988, Graham was quoted saying, "Mao Tse Tung's Eight Precepts are basically the same as the Ten Commandments. In fact, if we can't have the Ten Commandments read in the schools, I'll settle for Mao's Precepts" (Gothardism Evaluated, 1988, p. 16).

-- After a five-day visit to North Korea in 1992, in which Graham praised North Korea's Marxist dictator Kim II Sung's call for "reconciliation and peace" and said he had "learned to appreciate Korea's long struggle to preserve its national sovereignty," Graham appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America", saying of his trip that the people of North Korea seemed "relaxed and happy," noting that they were preparing for Kim's 80th birthday, of whom Graham said was almost like "a grandfather" to his people. Graham said that Kim had given the Graham party "a very lavish luncheon" during which he was "very warm and friendly." (Reported in the 5/1/92 Calvary Contender and the 2/22/93 Christian News.)

--In 1988, Graham gave the keynote address at the signing ceremony of the Williamsburg Charter Foundation, "an ecumenical amalgamation of professing Christians, humanists, atheists, New Agers, Eastern religionists, etc., whose stated goal is religious tolerance in education, but all the while is promoting a new one world religion," according to the BDM website. Other "evangelical" signators and/or supporters with Graham were James Dobson, Beverly LaHaye and Chuck Colson.

--In 1967, Graham spoke at the dedication of Oral Roberts University and has appeared on TV specials with Roberts, never speaking a negative word on Roberts' "wild visions, faith healing, and shameless money-raising schemes," as the BDM site reports. At Graham's Amsterdam '83, two of the main speakers were wacked-out charismatics David Yonggi Cho of Korea and televangelist Pat Robertson.

******

On this same website of Biblical Discernment Ministries' is a great overall testimony from a pastor who attended a Billy Graham crusade in Long Island in 1990, then wrote to the publication The Baptist Lighthouse, saying,

"I have read often of the compromises of Billy Graham, but doubted some of the stories as exaggerated. Now they have been proven, in my eyes, worse than reported. . .My conclusion is that Billy Graham is making men twofold more the child of hell. . . The emphasis was on believing in God, with a little commentary on Jesus Christ, but very little. . .We were told that the way to take care of the sin problem is to 'receive Christ, rededicate your life, or renew your confirmation vows, or whatever you call it in your church.' I could hardly believe my ears. What do confirmation vows have to do with salvation?. . . No one could have convinced me of the apostasy of Billy Graham any more than my own experience. . . .He even had a Rabbi on the platform to show the unity of the religions. . . . Not having competent counselors is bad enough, but then to have led them to believe that a church experience is the same as being born again is the height of apostasy. . . . Billy has not compromised, he has gone kaput!"

******

The horrid theology of Billy Graham can be found page after page in his 2013 book, “The Reason for My Hope: Salvation.”

He writes, “To those who say you can have Christ without giving anything up, Satan is deceiving you. Do you become part of your country’s military force by just saying you are?”

In another passage, he scolds, “Who said that becoming a Christian was easy? It certainly was not for Jesus. Going to the cross for us was no easy task for Him—it cost Him His life’s blood. Being resurrected was no easy happening—it took a miracle. ‘Easy believism’ is an insult to the ultimate sacrifice Jesus made for us. The reward of His shed blood was the saving of lost souls.

Graham writes, “Today people are charmed by the love of God without realizing the curse of God’s judgment. Multitudes claim to follow Jesus but curse the changes He demands. The Bible says, ‘Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments.' He who says, ‘I know Him,’ and does not keep his commandments is a liar and the truth is not in him’ (I John 2: 3-4).”

  

Here are just a few more similar outtakes:

·        “Jesus is bigger than life, so when He comes into yours, there is no room for anything that does not glorify Him.” 

·        “Many people who are thinking about becoming Christians ask, ‘What’s in it for me? How can I benefit?’ If the answer is only to keep you from Hell, you haven’t considered the cost of living for Christ on earth. The right question is not, ‘What’s in it for me?’ but rather, ‘Is Christ in me?’ That very idea is unsettling for most because it means forfeiting control. It means the Lord Jesus Christ will come into your life and reform, conform, and transform you into an obedient follower. If that is not your desire, you have every reason to question whether or not you have been saved.”

·        “To be a Christian means to surrender yourself to the lordship of Jesus Christ, to give up whatever stands between you and the Lord. This is God’s truth . . . You must be willing to be changed . . . if we continue to feed our desires and serve our imaginations, there is reason to doubt our Christianity.”

Fire and water faves of Satan's minions

Over and over in the Bible, Satan’s cohorts show an affinity for water and fire.

“You ever notice how you have that same affinity?” says Jordan. “You have a bon fire and sit around and sing ‘Kumbaya’ and there’s a special bonding like that. Then you go to the beach and watch the waves come in and you hear the water and there’s something real special about that. There are things that happen in the world like that that the only way you’ll understand why it’s that way is in your Bible. Part of the activity of the world of the Adversary is connected with those things.

Referring to Jesus Christ at the Second Coming, Zechariah 10:11 says, [11] And he shall pass through the sea with affliction, and shall smite the waves in the sea, and all the deeps of the river shall dry up: and the pride of Assyria shall be brought down, and the sceptre of Egypt shall depart away.

Correspondingly, Habakkuk 3 says, [9] Thy bow was made quite naked, according to the oaths of the tribes, even thy word. Selah. Thou didst cleave the earth with rivers.
[10] The mountains saw thee, and they trembled: the overflowing of the water passed by: the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high.
[13] Thou wentest forth for the salvation of thy people, even for salvation with thine anointed; thou woundedst the head out of the house of the wicked, by discovering the foundation unto the neck. Selah.

“The ‘head out of the house of the wicked’ is the Antichrist,” explains Jordan. “He’s the head of the satanic policy of evil and the judgment on the rivers . . .

“The cloaking effect in the rivers, where they’re trying to hide, and the Red Sea, the Dead Sea, have places where there are openings that go down into the heart of the earth into hell—places where some of Satan’s emissaries hide in these waters.

“When Christ comes back and judges these things, He’s not just pitching a hissy fit and being capricious; there’s a connection between the satanic program and that stuff.

“In Zechariah 10:11, when it talks about Christ smiting the waves and the sea and all the depths of the rivers shall dry up, He is literally assaulting the demonic forces of the Adversary and there’s that army and that fight.

“In Joel 2 we talked about that at great length. He’s come to put all of that away; He’s literally going to take the armies and artillery of the strongman and bind him and put an end to the conflict. The Second Coming of Christ settles the battle that started in Genesis 1.

*****

“When the Israelites go into captivity in that fifth course of judgment it’s called the Assyrian captivity. It starts off with Babylon, but in Isaiah 14 the king of Babylon is called the king of Assyria. Isaiah 52:4: [4] For thus saith the Lord GOD, My people went down aforetime into Egypt to sojourn there; and the Assyrian oppressed them without cause.

“When the Israelites were down in Egypt, who was oppressing them? The Assyrian. There wasn’t even a kingdom of Assyria then but the Bible identifies a guy as the Assyrian. You remember in Exodus 1 where it says a pharaoh rose up that knew not Joseph? It’s this same guy. What it’s talking about is that satanic program behind the kings of the earth.

“Ezekiel 31: 2-3 says, [2] Son of man, speak unto Pharaoh king of Egypt, and to his multitude; Whom art thou like in thy greatness?
[3] Behold, the Assyrian was a cedar in Lebanon with fair branches, and with a shadowing shroud, and of an high stature; and his top was among the thick boughs.

“Wait a minute, who is this guy? Pharoah king of Egypt is also the Assyrian. What you’re seeing there is that behind . . .

“You remember Ezekiel 28’s ‘prince of Tyrus’ turns out to be Satan? These kings of the earth are literally just his minions. He’s the power behind the throne. Revelation 13 talks about the Antichrist and it’s Satan that gives him his power and his authority and his seat of government.”

Things can change on a dime, er, period

While Zechariah 9:9 references Jesus Christ “riding upon a colt the foal of an ass” in His meek and lowly first coming, Zechariah 9:10 gives an exact opposite kind of a view.

“Here He comes and He cuts off the chariot from Ephraim, and the horse from Jerusalem, and the battle bow,” explains Preacher Richard Jordan. “Now He’s not a meek and lowly guy; now He’s the boss. Now He’s going to be the one who has dominion ‘from sea even to sea, and from river even to the ends of the earth.’ He’s going to be the King.

“Obviously, you have two diametrically opposite comings between those two verses. Now, in the Prophets, they don’t understand that. This confused Israel.

“At the end of Zechariah 9:9 is Jesus riding upon an ass, then there’s a period and the next sentence begins, ‘I will cut off.’ At that period you have a space of at least 2,000 years. Do you see there’s no indication in the text that there’s any break? It just goes right on through.

“Over and over in prophecy, you’ll have at a punctuation mark (and sometimes not even that) and there will be a gap of a tremendous amount of time. First coming, Second Coming. Captivity, Second Coming.

“All through prophecy the two are put together in one passage, and if you don’t know how to rightly divide them, you wind up being confused.

“What happens in 97 percent of Christendom is they think verse 9 and 10 all took place at the same time. That’s why you hear all these people say, ‘For Christ and His kingdom,’ and talk about how His kingdom is coming in. They’re always talking about the Lord ruling and reigning and you say, ‘What?!’ I mean, there’s a whole passel of theology, schools of theology—Calvinism, Covenant Theology, Preterism—all that stuff about how we’re in the kingdom NOW.

“Verse 10 says ‘his dominion shall be from sea even to sea’ . . . Whoever’s running things now can’t be the God of the Bible! He’s the wrong guy because verse 9 says ‘he is just, and having salvation,’ and we all know there’s no justice on this planet today.

“One of the greatest reasons to understand and believe in life after death is you know there’s no justice in this life. If there’s not a Creator to bring justice to every person, then there is NO justice because there isn’t any in this world.

“Asaph, back in Psalm 73, he gets all bent out of shape, confused and concerned. Why? He sees the wicked prosper and the righteous forsaken. He says, ‘I don’t understand it. Why is it that way? Why do the wicked seem to get ahead and DO get ahead?’

“Zechariah 9:9 says Jesus Christ is just and He’s got salvation, and that’s what He brings at the first coming. He provides the basis of justice and salvation at that period between verse 9 and 10. If you’re going to understand the prophetic Scripture, you’re going to have to see these gaps in the verses and you can only do that by rightly dividing your Bible.

*****

“Like I said, these things confused Zechariah and the other prophets. I Peter 1:9-10 says, [9] Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls.
[10] Of which salvation the prophets have inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you.

“You know immediately that’s not talking about you and me as members of the Body of Christ because the grace you and I have today, in the dispensation of grace, was a mystery kept secret from these people and not revealed to them. We have the preaching of Jesus Christ according to the ‘revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began and not made known in other ages.’

“For Israel, they looked to the future. They have the salvation coming in the future and it’s prophesied about. It’s coming and they’re searching about it.

“I Peter 1:10 tells us it’s not just that the people who heard the prophets tried to search it out, but it’s the guys who gave the prophecy themselves: Zechariah, Haggai, Zephaniah, Habbakuk, Hosea, Amos, Daniel. They say, ‘We’ve got this prophecy; what does it mean?’

“Verse 11 says, [11] Searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.

“If you look back at Zechariah 9, that’s exactly what you’ve got. In verse 9 you’ve got the sufferings of Christ and in verse 10 you’ve got the glory that should follow. So those two things are put together, but the prophets . . . ‘What does ‘the suffering’ mean? What does ‘the glory’ mean? They’re searching and inquiring, ‘What are we talking about?! How do you have the suffering and then the glory? What does it entail and how do you put them together?’

“You go through these passages and you’ll have the suffering, the glory, the glory, the glory, the suffering, the glory, the suffering. How do you put a timeline on that?

“I Peter 1:12 says, [12] Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

“Zechariah’s trying to figure out what it is and he has it revealed to him, ‘This isn’t about YOU, Zechariah, this is about some people in the future.’

“So when you have people reading the prophets and saying it’s all completely fulfilled in the prophets’ day, Pete says, ‘No, no, no.’ They understood they were writing prophecy about the future and Pete says, ‘It’s about us, the little flock, and about where WE’RE going.’

“So there’s the sufferings of Christ; there’s the glory that’s going to be His and what you’re reading Zechariah tell is, ‘Your King is coming but He’s going to first have this meek and lowly coming before He has dominion over everything. Before He’s exalted in that position as being King over it all He’s first going to suffer on the behalf of His people and bring justice and salvation through that suffering.’ ”

Our ace in the hole--just glory in the end

“When you focus on your real future…you know, we talk a lot about what the future holds in store and I enjoy going into details and why the details are important because they tell you it’s real . . .

“But in your life day by day, if you focus on your real future, that’s where victory is; that’s where your joy is, where your life is.

“II Thessalonians 2:16-17: [16] Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace.

“Paul says, ‘I do everything I do so you can have that full assurance of understanding.' He writes in Colossians 2: ‘[2] That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
[3] In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’

“Revelation 10:7 says the mystery of God is what the prophets are accomplishing: [7] But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished, as he hath declared to his servants the prophets.

“The mystery of Christ is what the Body of Christ is in Ephesians 3: [3] How that by revelation he made known unto me the mystery; (as I wrote afore in few words,
[4] Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the mystery of Christ)

“When you see how those things fit together, as Ephesians 2:7 says, [7] That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

“God wants you to see the wealth, the riches of the glory of this mystery. What is it? Christ in you. The hope and the expectation; the confident anchor of glory. The only place you’ll get that is in the Lord Jesus Christ.

*****

“When you let the fact that God the Father has loved you . . . When you get to where you’re consumed with the realization…we sing that song, ‘Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade;
To write the love of God above
Would drain the ocean dry;
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.’

“When you realize how much God loves you, all the way to Calvary, and knows everything about you that you wouldn’t want anybody else to know, He says, ‘I still love you.’ When you relax and just let God love you, you quit trying to perform and show that you deserve it, because you don’t.

“That’s the driving thing behind religion: ‘I got to perform, I got to prove I’m worthy and that I have merit.’ That’s what drives sin! It’s that quest for validation, approval, for acceptance—to prove your worth loving.

“Romans 5:8 says, ‘But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.’ That’s love!

“John says, ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ Paul says, ‘For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.’

“I think like God thinks so then His love begins to constrain me. You realize He’s given you an everlasting consolation and good hope through grace.

“I don’t care how good you’ve got it or how bad you’ve got it now, you know what your ace in the hole is? In the end it’s just glory.

"And one of the wonderful things about that is that it gets bigger and bigger every day. The verse says, ‘That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace.’

“One age goes and you say, ‘Woo, it couldn’t be better,’ and then He says, ‘Wait ’til the next one. It’s going to exceed the one before it.’

“You know, you’re never going to be able to get to the end of God’s grace and love but boy, it’s going to be a good ride.

*****

“One of Job’s friends asked him, ‘Are the consolations of God too small for you?’ How about you? Is the will of God too small for you; you’ve got to do it yourself?

“And He ‘gave you a good hope.’ Better than winning the lottery. One time I had a guy say to me, ‘You know, I don’t worry about eternity; I got to get through the day. What am I worried about where I go when I die?’

“I thought, ‘That’s the dumbest thing you could ever say. If you won the lottery today, would that change your attitude about tomorrow? You got all that money, you don’t have any problems, your financial future is absolutely secure. Would that change today a little bit for you? And tomorrow?

“When you know there’s glory out there and the future’s secure, and there’s a good hope through grace, you see what that does? It puts internal fortitude into your life and establishes you in every good word and work.

"Verse 17 says, ‘Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.' That's our hope; that's the glory God has for us.

“Harry Ironside wrote a little poem that I just love: ‘What a prospect child of glory does the future hold

By the wildest flights of fancy thou couldst never ask for more.

Heir of god, joint heir forever with His own beloved Son,

God to you could not have promised more bliss than He has done.’ ”

Committed unto the sea

In Mark 4 Jesus and His disciples get into a boat and cross to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.

“Go back and read Psalm 89, Psalm 107, Psalm 67, and you’ll see that only Jehovah, the Creator, can calm the raging sea,” explains Jordan. “Jesus demonstrates Himself to be the Jehovah God of the Old Testament by standing and ordering creation to cease the rages and that lake turned into the face of a mirror; totally calm.

“He says to His disciples, ‘Why are you so fearful? How is it that ye have no faith?’ There’s their problem. ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.’

“Look what they forgot in verse 35: ‘And the same day, when the even was come, he saith unto them, Let us pass over unto the other side.’

“Where’d He tell them they were going when they got into the boat? To the other side. They get out in the middle of a storm-tossed sea and they’re jumping up and down, yelling at Jesus, ‘What are you doing asleep?! Don’t you care?! We’re fixing to drown!’

“Jesus gets up and says, ‘Peace, be still,’ and everything calms down. Then He says, ‘Don’t you dudes remember what I just told you? Have you forgotten that I told you we’re going to the other side?’

“He’s emphasizing the point, ‘If you drowned out here in the storm my word wouldn’t be true, so if you really understood what I told you and believed it, you know what you’d be doing? You’d be down here sleeping with me because I’m just resting ’til we get to the other side, because that’s where the Father told me we’re going.’

*****

“You ever hear that song, ‘Master, the tempest is raging! The billows are tossing high! The sky is o'ershadowed with blackness. No shelter or help is nigh.’

“They’re crying, ‘We’re dying, Lord, and you’re asleep! How can you sleep?! Carest thou not that we perish?!’

“What a stupid question, but they’re all caught up in their circumstances. He arises and does what only God can do, rebuking the wind and saying unto the sea, ‘Peace.’

“Only God can do that! Once again He demonstrates Himself to be the Messiah. Psalm 89 
said that’s exactly what Israel’s Messiah would do:

[8] O LORD God of hosts, who is a strong LORD like unto thee? or to thy faithfulness round about thee?
[9] Thou rulest the raging of the sea: when the waves thereof arise, thou stillest them.

“You ever been that way in your life? The winds and the waves are beating; life’s coming over the transom and all of a sudden your ship is full of all kind of garbage?

“I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a storm in a boat where the stuff’s coming over, but it isn’t just water; it’s all the sludge from the sea that comes up.

“Here’s these disciples with the seaweed and the bushes hanging all over them and they’re looking at Jesus and He’s asleep.

“When Jesus says to them, ‘Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?’ I read that and think, ‘Wait a minute, what in the world is He talking about?

“Well, as Paul writes, ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.’ So you 
look back up through the passage in Mark and ask, ‘What did He say to them that they aren’t believing?’

“Look back at verse 35: What do you think they’re going to do? You know why He’s asleep? They aren’t on the other side yet! You say, ‘They didn’t believe what He said to them.’

“My point to you is, God’s Word doesn’t calm the storms until you believe it! The power that’s in that Book stays in that Book until you believe it!

“And you can be just like the storm-tossed, frightened, confused, bewildered, upset, accusing . . .  Imagine saying to the Lord Jesus Christ, ‘Carest not that we perish?’

“What an accusation! He says, ‘Peace, be still.’ He does what He says He’s going to do. The Word of God is where the power of God resides.”

Here’s the lyrics to the classic hymn based on the account:

Master the tempest is raging. Master, the tempest is raging!

The billows are tossing high!

The sky is o'ershadow with blackness,

No shelter or help is nigh;

Carest Thou not that we perish?

How canst Thou lie asleep,

When each moment so madly is threatening

A grave in the angry deep?

Refrain

The winds and the waves shall obey Thy will,
Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm tossed sea,
Or demons or men, or whatever it be
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean, and earth, and skies;
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey Thy will,
Peace, peace, be still!

Master, with anguish of spirit

I bow in my grief today;

The depths of my sad heart are troubled

Oh, waken and save, I pray!

Torrents of sin and of anguish

Sweep o’er my sinking soul;

And I perish! I perish! dear Master

Oh, hasten, and take control.

Refrain

Master, the terror is over,

The elements sweetly rest;

Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,

And heaven’s within my breast;

Linger, O blessèd Redeemer!

Leave me alone no more;

And with joy I shall make the blest harbor,

And rest on the blissful shore.

(new article tomorrow)

Addicted to His essences--EVERYTHING!

“Everybody has some kind of thing they are dependent on,” says Southern California preacher John Verstegen. “The world depends on drugs, sex, alcohol, politics, pride, fame, wealth, popularity. Everyone lives with some kind of dependency.

“The psychologist says to the psychiatrist, ‘Oh, you have this dependant relationship,’ and he responds, ‘Yeah, but so do you.’

“But watch this dependency: ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’ (Gal. 2:20)

“This life that we call the ‘Christian life’ (‘Christ who is our life’) is a life of dependency. It’s the only life of dependency that really makes any sense and it’s the true cling of dependency. Everything else is just trying to counterfeit for the true, for the real.”

*****

In our makeup, in the way God made us, is a part of us that’s designed to know Him, and when that part doesn’t function, there’s an empty place.

God put in us a knowledge of Him; a place for Him. Romans 1:20 says, “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.”

“You’ve got the information and when you really BELIEVE it, it becomes the energy and the life and the transforming power down in your soul that His life then works out through you,” explains Jordan.

“God says, ‘Get yourself out of the way and I WILL love them through you, but it isn’t your love that’s the issue. It’s MY love and, by the way, it’s my love for you.’

“When you get loved that way, and you realize how you love that way, you begin to love back. And you begin to think like He thinks.

“You begin to love the things He loves, not because you have to; He just begins to love them through you and you begin to think about them the way He thinks about them and you know what, that’s what love is.

“All you are is the fruit-bearer and He’s the fruit-producer. It’s an interesting thing about fruit. Fruit is seasonal. It’s not always on the tree. But it’s constant. It comes back every season.

*****

“In John 4, Jesus Christ informs the woman at the well that it isn’t about religion and outward stuff. He says, ‘God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.’

“When the Bible says you’re going to worship God and the essence of God, the idea is He’s a spirit. You’re not going to know Him in the physical realm. So a fool, somebody who thinks that all there is the physical, material world to relate to, says, ‘There is no God!’

“Because God is a spirit, in order to be qualified to work with Him you have to connect with Him at that level. What the New Covenant does is it brings us the spiritual qualification; the spiritual status whereby we can work with God, who is a spirit. When you work with Him, that’s where it ALL has to start.

“Paul says in Ephesians 3:16: ‘That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.’

“That word ‘might’ Paul uses there is the same word as the verse that says, ‘Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.’

“You see, the powerful working of the power of God in your life . . . Paul tells the Thessalonians to do the work of faith with power, but that’s a spiritual power in your inner man. It’s not moving cold fronts and snow storms kind of stuff. And it’s not coming in and zapping you and making your hair stand up on end.

"There’s this inner working of the power of God, but all of that is according to a plan called ‘wisdom,’ and God’s essence works together with all that.

*****

“One of the things ‘right division’ does is it takes you out of all that superstitious nonsense business and helps you to appreciate the wisdom of God. It isn’t about power.

“You’ve got these ‘word of faith’ preachers where it’s all about POWER—you make God move in your behalf and it gets so confusing: ‘I’m suffering but I’m resisting. I’m claiming God’s healing and, because I am, I’m resisting, but I’m still sick.’

“You know, it’s, ‘Resist the devil and he’ll flee from you, but he’s still whacking me!' The preacher says, ‘Well, you just keep resisting and that’s godly suffering.’ I’m thinking, ‘Godly suffering! That’s a fool’s errand, is what that is! There’s nothing God-like about that!’

“You know how many times in the Bible when somebody would tell a demon to flee? If somebody says, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ’ for a demon to flee, what would the demon do?

“He’s got no power against the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ! I know, somebody says, ‘Well, over there in Mark 5 he didn’t go right away.’ Yeah, but you got no idea in the world anything about Mark 5, so don’t start telling me about that stuff.

“That demon didn’t want to leave the land; he didn’t care anything about leaving the guy. He went in the pigs. He might have thought that was a step up, I don’t know.

“There’s stuff going on in the Four Gospels that people don’t have any idea about and yet they all talk about ‘spiritual power.’ What they’re all talking about is just superstitious nonsense.

*****

“When you understand the essence of God, then you understand Jesus Christ is God the Son, the second person of the godhead, who took upon Him the essence of man--spirit, soul and body-- and holds each together in one person.

"That’s our contact point and that’s why God made Him to be sin for us that we might be made His righteousness. Christ’s the point where the justice of God puts us and where things are set right, and now we’re compatible with all the essence of God.

“I think about that and say, ‘WOW, whoa, what a thrilling thing it is; we now are spiritually qualified to be used by God in his plans and his purposes in the universe!’

*****

“All of God’s attributes work together in harmony and there are two essences that function together to make God’s integrity, or His holiness.

“It’s made up of righteousness, which is the standard of His integrity, and justice, which is the function of His integrity.

“Righteousness is the perfect rightness of God; His capacity as complete and total perfection in character. His justice is always right—perfect rightness. His justice judges or blesses people and takes action. If you don’t match His righteousness, then there’s judgment. If you do, there’s blessing.

“Our point of contact with God, when you think of His essences, is not His love; it’s His justice. We think of God’s love like our love and it isn’t like our love. God’s love is the motivator of His other essences and it’s the love of God that motivated the justice of God to develop a plan.

“When you think of salvation, justification and our redemption in Christ Jesus, and you begin to watch the different essences of God work together, His love motivates God. It motivated His omniscience; God’s all-knowingness.

“Omniscience is His wisdom. He has perfect wisdom, so God’s love motivates His wisdom to devise a wise plan of redemption and reconciliation and restoration. His justice is going to be motivated to develop a plan whereby lost, sinful man can be restored. The plan is called grace.”

(new article tomorrow)