In the midst of the sea

Revelation 20: [10] And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

[11] And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them.
[12] And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.
[13] And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
[14] And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
[15] And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Notice, there’s hell and then there’s the lake of fire. The ultimate destination is the lake of fire. They’re held in hell until the Great White Throne Judgment, then they’re judged according to their works and cast into the lake of fire which is the second death and that’s the end of it.

Hell is sort of like the jail where you’re held until you’re sent to your final destination, the Big House over here, explains Richard Jordan.

You remember the rich man in Luke 16. He died and was buried. What do you bury? The body. “And in hell he lifted up his eyes.” What would have lifted up his eyes in hell? His soul.

Lost people will be resurrected in a body and their soul and they’re going to be lost spirit, soul and body just like the Believer will be restored spirit, soul and body.

What about that sea mentioned there in verse 13? When you see the thing about the sea giving up the dead, that’s not talking about people buried at sea in the Atlantic or the Pacific and that kind of stuff. People get all kind of weird ideas.

People have the idea that if you have your body cremated then you can’t be resurrected. Well, cremation is a fast decomposition. You think burying somebody in a casket and putting formaldehyde in their veins and putting them in a casket to rot slow . . . that’s a slow decomposition. You think being a carnival for maggots is a less offensive thing? That’s what Job said; I didn’t invent that phrase. Job said, “Though worms eat my flesh.”

If you’re thinking that the method of disposing of your body, when it goes back, “dust thou art to dust shalt thou return,” is going to have something to do with resurrection, well you’ve bought into some kind of doctrine of pagan mythology rather than Bible.

If hell is located in the heart of the earth, and the earth is fled away and going to be renovated, the question comes, “Where is the lake of fire?” That never bothered you? It bothers me; I want to know about that . . . to be continued tomorrow along with a different topic.

Here is an old post:

"Fire and water must have made you their daughter," is a line from a famous tune from 1970 named Fire and Water. If you think about it, references to fire and water in American songs are quite common. Of course, Satan's minions, we know from the Bible, are huge fans of both.

When Jesus Christ returns at the Second Coming, Zechariah 10:11 tells us, [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.

Similarly, 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. 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.

Shortcut thinking

(new article tomorrow)

Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers; that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in.”

You read that, and if you just take it like it says, what would you think the earth looked like? Nobody that ever believed the Bible bought in to the scientific error of believing there’s a flat earth. If you wanted to be scientifically astute, you’d have believed what the Bible said about the earth being a sphere. It says that he "sitteth upon the circle of the earth." He’s the head of creation, the head of the government of the earth, says Richard Jordan.

I love that grasshopper business. Leviticus 11, talking about the diet stuff where Israel can’t eat this and can’t eat that, but there’s one verse that says Israel could eat grasshoppers: "Even these of them ye may eat; the locust after his kind, and the bald locust after his kind, and the beetle after his kind, and the grasshopper after his kind."

They could eat locusts and then He said, "You can eat the bald locust." I’ve always said, "If you find a bald locust, grab him, will you, I want to try him out!" That’s why John the Baptist came eating locust and wild honey. He came eating a clean diet. That’s the idea there.

Isaiah 40:15 says, "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing." It’s one of those hundred or so phrases in your language that comes right out of a King James Bible. When he says the inhabitants of the earth are as grasshoppers, he’s saying, "You know what, we don’t tell him what to do. He’s the king; he’s the head. Not us."

Isaiah 40:22. Who stretched them out? God did. Who spread them out as a tent to dwell in? God did. You see, Israel understood that when Moses wrote Genesis 1:1 he was writing it to people who already understood what this passage said. They already knew God created the heaven and the earth as a tent for Him to dwell in—not just us but Him!

*****

Jeremiah 10 says, "Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O LORD; thou art great, and thy name is great in might.
[7] Who would not fear thee, O King of nations? for to thee doth it appertain: forasmuch as among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like unto thee.
[8] But they are altogether brutish and foolish: the stock is a doctrine of vanities.

Notice there is a doctrine associated with the worship of these idols and the doctrine is called in I Timothy, "The doctrine of devils." There’s a religious system associated with these people and these idols and the idols represent the physical manifestation of the demonic spirits that inspires the doctrine they represent.

The passage goes on, “Silver spread into plates is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of the workman, and of the hands of the founder: blue and purple is their clothing: they are all the work of cunning men.
[10] But the LORD is the true God, he is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation.”

They’ve got the colors, the robes, the tapestry, and all the accoutrements that go along with the idol. That’s the contrast going on in Luke 8. This (formerly demon-controlled) man was over there caught up in all this satanic stuff and now he’s liberated and Christ says, "You go back and tell those people where you come from in your hometown—go back into that satanic stronghold—and declare to them what the true and living God can do. Demonstrate for them what He’ll accomplish and let them see the difference between you now, and when you were like they are, and make that known."

It’s fascinating this thing about Jesus being the true and the living God. You know, when you read down there in Jeremiah 10, Jeremiah looks at it and says, "Man, when people look at you and realize who you are it’s staggering to consider who God is, and who in their right mind wouldn’t honor you?!"

*****

A brother in Christ asked me, "What is your favorite subject to study in all of the Bible?" Usually my favorite book is the one I’m studying at the time because you just get caught up and fascinated in it.

But I thought for a minute, "If there’s one subject in the Bible that you like to study that does more for you than when you study it than any other subject, that would be your favorite subject, that when you’re down in the dumps, it’s the subject you’d study and it’d get you up and when you’re up already it’s the subject that would bring you up more . . ."

The word "enthusiasm" is a Greek word--"en" and then the word "theos," or God. Into God. The Greek word is the idea of being inspired and lifted up. You get into God and it gets you into life.

If there’s one thing I could study, and that I do study a lot, and just enjoy studying that always revs me up, it’s what Christ told that guy to do. It’s the deity of Christ. Of all the subjects in the Bible, for me personally, and I think for every Believer, ought to be the most powerful subject in your life, is just to stand back and look at who the Bible says Jesus Christ is and appreciate the fact that you’re in Him and that you’re complete in Him, and that it’s Him who is the source of all your blessings, and the source of your true, real identity, and He’s the one you have all your status in.

You see, that’s the thing that’s so wonderful about the grace of God; it’s that it makes Jesus Christ everything. And the Bible says that "it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell." If you ask God the Father what is the most exciting subject in all the universe, He’d say, "My Son."

Psalm 16 says "at my right hand are pleasures forever more." Well, who sits at the Father’s right hand? Any way you cut it, slice it, dice it, look at it, think about it, take it apart and put it back together, Jesus Christ is the apple of the Father’s eye. He’s the thing that causes the Father’s heart to rejoice. He’s the one.

It’s mindboggling when you really look at what the Scripture says about who He is. It’s sort of numbs your mind. It’s SO big, and it just keeps getting bigger, and you can never just get your arms around it.

*****

When Satan’s tempting Jesus Christ in the wilderness, he says, "If you be the Son of God, c’mon and do that! Let me see you do that!" Well, He’s going to do it one day. But Satan says, "Do it now! C’mon, if you’re who you say you are! If you’re who God says you are, why are you down over here in the wilderness like a whipped pup hungry with no friends?! Why aren’t you in the glorious splendor that God says is yours?!" Satan goes right to the heart of the thing.

In Matthew 11, when John the Baptist was in prison, you remember he sent his disciples and said go ask Jesus, "Are you really the Messiah?" Why would John do that? Well, he’s been preaching about the kingdom, and the Messiah coming and delivering them, but where is he? In jail fixing to have his head cut off.

Do you think maybe he would be a little concerned that, "I want to be just real sure that what I’m preaching is right"? Yeah. That’s what the devil’s trying to do with Christ here. Just get Him to doubt.

Jesus said unto him, "It is said thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." You don’t doubt God. You just trust what God said.

When we’re dealing with the demons here, we’re dealing with the issue of the satanic attempt to hold the land. The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the power of darkness are coming in conflict here and this unclean spirit is in the synagogue, right in the middle of Israel’s religion.

You see how polluted Israel’s religion had become? In the synagogue, where the Word of God, where the holy one of Israel is to be recognized, what do you have? Satan parading his victories and polluting Israel right before God’s face, as it were. You have this vain, apostate religion in Israel.

What would Jesus say in John 8? "You are of your father the devil!" Literally carrying on Satan’s plan and purpose in the earth instead of God’s.

Notice where this guy in Mark 5 lived. Verse 3 says he dwellest among the tombs, he’s in the mountains, he’s cutting himself and so forth. Come with me to Isaiah 65.

You know what that guy in Mark 5 was doing? He was carrying on that pagan system back here in Isaiah 65, describing the demonic activity of Satan in Israel’s program—that guy in Mark 5 is possessed and doing exactly what the prophets said Israel would do. The picture of Israel possessed by the satanic policy of evil.

That’s exactly what’s going on back here in Luke 4, only he’s right there doing it like Isaiah 65 says, "before God’s face." He’s in the synagogue where the Word of God is! Where you’d think you could go and find truth in the nation!

Luke 4:33 says, "And in the synagogue there was a man, which had a spirit of an unclean devil, and cried out with a loud voice." Christ is going to demonstrate that He has the power to cast out the spirits of unclean devils. He comes and takes that which defiles the nation Israel and does away with it and cleanses them and sets them free from satanic captivity.

Verse 34 says, "Saying, Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God."

He takes himself and the man and identifies them as one. He is so in control of the guy that he speaks of this man as one with himself. He’s POSSESSING him! And he’s come to possess and pollute Israel and possess and pollute Israel’s land.

“Let us alone," means "Leave us to our sinful captive state." Isn’t that what sin does? Think about that. "Leave us in the clutches of the satanic policy of evil! We don’t want anything to do with thee!" Why? Well, Jesus said, "Men love darkness rather than light!" "We’re happy in our sin; we’re happy in our darkness! Get away from us!" Isn’t that what Israel just did to Christ?

He’s the one who comes and says, "I’m the one who can deliver you; I’m the one who can come bring all the answers! And it will extend out to all of the nations of the earth! Come on, let’s go!" and they say, "We don’t want anything to do with you; we think we’ll just throw you over the hill and just get rid of you!" That’s exactly what’s going on in the nation Israel!

“Art thou come to destroy us?" Yeah. He had! But this guy isn’t saying, "I know that’s what you come for." He’s questioning why Christ is there and he’s saying, "You’re not any better than I am. I’ve come to steal and to kill, and that’s what you’ve come to do. You think you’re better than me?! You’re not any better than I am! In fact, you’re not as good as I am. You profess to be a holy one. I know what I’m doing. Buzz off."

Notice how he acknowledges who the Lord is? James 2:19 says, "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble."

They’re ahead of you sometimes. "They don’t just know there’s a God—they tremble!" Notice he calls him Jesus of Nazareth. There’s his humanity. ‘The holy one of God.’ There’s his Deity. This guy understands who he is; he just equates the Lord Jesus Christ as his enemy and he says, "We got a better plan than you do. You just want to come to destroy us. Well, I work for the REAL destroyer."

Jesus rebuked him, saying, "Hold thy peace and come out of him." The Lord Jesus Christ takes that demon’s self-justification and turns it into what it is—self-condemnation—and He silences him. He says, "Shut your mouth." That’s the justice of God.

Romans 3:19 says, "Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God."

You see the justice of God stops the mouth of rebellion! So Christ rebukes him. He says, "Hold thy peace and come out!" and when the devil had fled him in the midst, he came out of him and hurt him not.

In the account in Mark 1 it says, "after the devil had torn him." One last attempt by that demon that’s in him to try to render this man useless before he came out. Now, he had to come out because Christ told him to come out. Jesus Christ never had any trouble getting the demons out of anybody.

Majestic meeting in exhibitor's pavilion

I Thessalonians 4: [17] Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

There’s a discussion you hear people have about, “Well, what are the clouds?” People realize, “They’re not rain clouds; they’re not storm clouds.”

There’s that verse in Matthew 26 where it says the Lord Jesus Christ is going to come in the clouds of heaven: [64] Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.

When the Bible talks about the Lord of hosts, it’s talking about a host of angels. This great crowd, says Richard Jordan.

Hebrews 12: [1] Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,

The word “cloud” there is not talking about a cloud of water vapor. It’s talking about a big group of witnesses; all these people listed in chapter 11.

One of the ways of understanding I Thessalonians is to say that the clouds are really angels; the heavenly host. I don’t think that’s what it is. It seems to me if he had wanted to say angels, he would have said angels. I think it’s going to be clouds.

II Samuel 22:8 matches Psalm 18 and this is a psalm that really prophetically looks toward the Second Coming of Christ.

[8] Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth.
[9] There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
[10] He bowed the heavens also, and came down; and darkness was under his feet.
[11] And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.
[12] And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of the skies.

Under his feet were clouds. What you have with the clouds becoming thick darkness, look at Psalm 97: [1] The LORD reigneth; let the earth rejoice; let the multitude of isles be glad thereof.
[2] Clouds and darkness are round about him: righteousness and judgment are the habitation of his throne.

In II Samuel, it says “he made darkness pavilions round about him.” The way He did that was with clouds that veil off His glory.

If you get clouds that are thick enough and dense enough, they black out the sun. But if you got up in an airplane and flew into those clouds, they would be snowy white.

I’ve done that. I’ve flown into a cloud bank that looked just as dark as night, but when you actually flew INTO them, they were just light and white. What the darkness is really is a shadow. It’s the optics of the thing.

So, what the cloud does is it veils back the sunlight. Now, around the Lord He has the same thing. He has clouds to sort of veil off His glory.

If you look at I Timothy 6 you'll see why that is: [16] Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see: to whom be honour and power everlasting. Amen.

The light of the majesty of the manifestation of His person. God as being God cannot be limited by time or space.

Because He is God and He has a creation that He’s made, He chooses to manifest Himself to His creation. He chooses to do that in a geographic location; that’s part of what the third heaven is about. When He does it, He does it in this blazing representation of LIGHT and it’s called the glory of God.

But when that glory appears—when the manifestation of His person appears, it is so overwhelming that you can’t approach to it. So He veils it off in the Scripture, over and over, and what He veils it with are clouds.

The clouds put a filter, as it were, on the glory and so He builds a pavilion round about Him. A pavilion is a “temporary building erected for the use of an exhibitor,” according to the dictionary.

In other words, He builds a house around Him; a temporary dwelling place in which He exhibits His glory. The pavilion is made of clouds.

I Kings 8 has a passage talking about the glory of the Lord filling the temple: [10] And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the LORD,
[11] So that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of the LORD.

The same thing happened in Exodus 40 when the glory of the Lord entered into the tabernacle of Moses. The cloud filled the house and the cloud had the glory of God in it, but there’s no way you could approach to that glory if it wasn’t filtered.

Notice what happens in verse 12: [12] Then spake Solomon, The LORD said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
[13] I have surely built thee an house to dwell in, a settled place for thee to abide in for ever. 

In other words, what that cloud’s doing is holding back, making it so that you could approach to the Lord.

This happens all through back there with Israel. Exodus 19 they have the pillar of fire by night and the cloud by day—the cloud representing the Lord’s presence in their midst, but it’s a cloud because it’s engulfed. It’s veiled off.

Exodus 19:9: [9] And the LORD said unto Moses, Lo, I come unto thee in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with thee, and believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people unto the LORD.

He comes in this thick cloud; it holds back the light. Verse 16: [16] And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightnings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled.

There’s the cloud in which the glory of God is and what you’re seeing when you see the cloud is you see the majesty of His glory, but it’s veiled so they could look at it.

Exodus 20: [20] And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.
[21] And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

Well, that’s not like a dark hole on Star Trek kind of a thing. There’s this cloud where the glory of God is but it’s veiled back. I mean, these are real clouds; these things are not make-believe kind of things.

Nahum 1: [1] The burden of Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum the Elkoshite.
[2] God is jealous, and the LORD revengeth; the LORD revengeth, and is furious; the LORD will take vengeance on his adversaries, and he reserveth wrath for his enemies.
[3] The LORD is slow to anger, and great in power, and will not at all acquit the wicked: the LORD hath his way in the whirlwind and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet.

This passage is about the Second Advent; it’s going to be historically about God judging Nineveh. The Book of Job talks about the Lord’s coming and it’s like a whirlwind.

So, when the Lord has a dust-up, what happens is you have clouds. Now, you know when someone’s walking across somewhere, they can make a big cloud plume, and it encompasses them.

In a case like this, when He comes through the atmosphere, His presence makes such a disturbance that it generates clouds and storms and stuff.

But there’s also the issue of His presence; the majesty of His presence being manifest in a cloud that literally veils off the light to which no man can approach.

What happens is we’re going to be caught up in the clouds. Not in angels, but we’re going to be caught up in this giant pavilion that accompanies the presence of the Lord when He comes, and the pavilion is a place that’s a temporary structure that’s used for an exhibitor.

So, where you’re going to meet Him is in this pavilion that He has that surrounds His presence and is made up of the clouds. We’re not going to be standing out looking at the clouds; we’re going to be in the midst of the clouds.

The Lord’s in the midst of the clouds. We’ll go right into His presence. The clouds will veil what’s going on off from everybody else.

In Ezekiel 1 you see this thing about the light to which no man can approach: [4] And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.

Ezekiel sees the glory of God and he sees this great cloud that engulfs it. The cloud that engulfs it is glowing; it’s glowing from the inside out.

Now, the light that comes out is affecting all around it. Ezekiel 1: [27] And I saw as the colour of amber, as the appearance of fire round about within it, from the appearance of his loins even upward, and from the appearance of his loins even downward, I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and it had brightness round about.
[28] As the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard a voice of one that spake.

Notice the description there in verse 28. We call that a rainbow. So, the appearance of the glory of God--this light that represents His glory was not just a white light shining out. It was that because that’s what light does, but rather it was the appearance of a rainbow.

When it goes through that prism and bend it what it does is it bends out the different shades and all the colors of that light appear. That’s where we get the rainbow.

What’s happening is that light comes out through that cloud and you begin to see the appearance of the glory of God in all of the facets of what light is.

What you do is you begin to see God’s glory represented in all the various facets that make up His character and His essence. That’s what His glory’s all about.

This cloud with the glory of God in it would have been a spectacular, majestic, awe-inspiring thing to see. Israel had it, we refer to it sometimes as the Shekinah Glory.

It’s the glory of His presence. It was in the tabernacle, it’s in the temple, it’s here in Ezekiel. The Lord Himself’s going to descend and we’re going to be caught up with other members of the Body of Christ in our glorified bodies; bodies that radiate His glory and we’re going to be caught up together in the clouds.

We’re going to be caught up into this pavilion that encompasses the glory of God. This is not some jitter bug that we’re going to go to; this is not some shindig. We’re going to go meet the Lord in all of His glory.