Participating in His divine life

(still working on next installment of testimony and will post tomorrow for certain)

The Bible teaches there is a big difference between human happiness and godly joy. What gave Paul the ability to live in whatever circumstances and have joy was from not evaluating life the way human viewpoint does, on the basis of simple happiness.

Human happiness is about meeting personal expectations and having circumstances match desires, explains Preacher Richard Jordan. It means I’m happy when life and others respond the way I want them to, or expect them to respond.

God’s purpose in your life has nothing to do with making you happy. People say, "Well, certainly God wants me to be happy." If God’s goal was to make/keep you happy, then suffering wouldn’t have any real purpose in your life. In fact, it would be completely counterproductive.

Real joy is about meeting God’s expectations, not yours, and having done God’s will. God’s purpose is to use me to bring glory to His name, and in every circumstance of my life that’s my purpose, my privilege. I don’t need to look at circumstances and evaluate whether this is a place I can rejoice or not.

Glory is an outward expression. Rejoicing is an inner attitude. So the inner attitude of joy results in me being able to express that outward demonstration of that joy in times of trouble, difficulty and pressure, or persecution.

It isn’t enough just to say "tribulation works patience"; it’s KNOWING that it does that causes us to be able to have the glory—the outward expression of this joy in the midst of trouble.

All of your joy is eventually going to have to be based in who God has made you and what He’s going to do with you in Christ. Every time in Paul’s epistles when you see the issue of hope, it’s always looking to the future. It’s a Rapture-resurrection kind of a look.

Always talking to God about what His word says about the circumstances I’m in gives me the ability to continually endure through the trouble because I’ve got a hope out there in the end that fills my heart with rejoicing. My joy is going to come from the sufficiency of His grace."

*****

We instinctively withdraw our hand if it’s getting burned, right? But when it comes to tribulation, God’s attitude and perspective is, "No, I don’t want you to behave like that,” explains Alex Kurz.

There’s a direct correlation with the activity of godliness and the sanctifying effect that tribulations now have in life. It isn’t something that we dread. It isn’t something we run away from. It’s something that we can not only welcome, but we recognize we’re more than conquerors. God says there is a specific provision He gives to us so we can triumph in life.

Instead of looking at tribulation as something to avoid, we’re to see its value. It’s no longer an enemy. I don’t have to fear or dread. I now can welcome those tribulations.

*****

Hebrews 5:7 is a powerful, powerful verse of our Lord Jesus Christ: "Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared."

He was a man of sorrows. Jesus was acquainted with grief. You don’t think He was touched by the effects of living in a sin-cursed world or the emotional and psychological trauma; the rejection and alienation. He knows--He feels hurt. He feels pain.

Verse 5:8 says, "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."

He didn’t succumb. While He’s in pain, while He’s in anguish, while He’s experiencing the trauma, you know what He chooses to do? "I’m going to learn." It’s a learning experience!

*****

The theme of II Corinthians actually has to do with sufferings, tribulations and infirmities. It’s probably the darkest epistle the Apostle Paul wrote.

He starts chapter 1 with, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God."

Drop down to verse 9: ‘But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead:
[10] Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us.’

We’re going to learn to trust what God has to say about tribulations. Our flesh and our emotions, which are committed to avoiding all that . . . we now can learn what God says about it. So now we can tackle it with this renewed understanding; this renewed knowledge about it. Don’t fear it; don’t dread it.

Paul says, "I’m now going to trust what God says." If He says tribulation is ordained to be a spiritual benefit and blessing, are we going to believe what He says about it? We have to readjust the way we think about the problems of life.

God will not remove your affliction. Paul says three times, "Lord Jesus, please," and Christ responds, "Paul, you aren’t thinking about what’s happening in your life." Jesus Christ reminds Paul about the available inner-man capacity he already had: "Paul, you’ve already got something; I don’t need to do any more."

God will not miraculously reach down into your life and remove your problem or shield you from the problem. He doesn’t give us immunity or a hedge of protection. God said, "It’s a blessing."

What do we KNOW? "Hey, it’s going to work something!" When bad things happen in your life, it has absolutely nothing to do with God’s displeasure. It has everything to do with God’s delight in producing something in the core of your inner man.

“If I’m going to glory," Paul says, "I’m going to glory in the things concerning my infirmities. God’s not angry with me; He’s not angry with you."

"So wait a minute, Paul, why do you look like a physical mess?!" Paul’s going to say, "You know what, that’s my certificate."

Acts 14:22 says, "Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God."

It says, "We must." Is that optional? It’s a reality. The sooner we accept the fact that tribulation is part and parcel of our experience and edification, the sooner we can employ the very doctrines God says we need in order to glory in and see the value, worth, profit and advantage in it.

*****

In the godhead, every member of the godhead—the "life of the godhead" is that everybody lives for the benefit of the other.

Everybody lives with a confident expectation of what the wisdom plan is, and they all live in faith in the Word, in the plan and in the work of the Son; they all work together, says Richard Jordan.

That’s why Paul starts Ephesians 3:12, “In whom,” meaning in this eternal purpose that the Father has in His Son, secured by the Spirit: [12] In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.

You see, it’s IN whom and it’s the faith of HIM. For you and me it all focuses on the Word, the Son, the one who is the bridge for you and me. The one by whom we have ACCESS through the Spirit unto the Father.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the mediator. He’s the one who brings all of that life to you and me. Romans 8:38 is a strangely wonderful verse. Paul says: [38] For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come.

He goes on: [39] Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Where’s the love of God? It’s in a person! It’s in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and when you got saved, where did God put you? He put you in Christ and you participate in His divine life; His relationships and all of the relationships that Jesus Christ has with the Father and the Spirit, we share.

Colossians 1:27: [27] To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Galatians 2: [20] 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.

“Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” You see that? He’s our life. He’s the one who gives us the boldness, the access, the confidence. Don’t spend your life trying to become something God’s already made you.

Spend your life living in the reality of who He’s made you and walk by faith in the details of your life—in EVERY detail of your life—because in every detail and in every decision you make, and every choice you face, and every obstacle you have to overcome, and every blessing you can enjoy, in all of those He is our life and we carry Him into life as we walk by faith in the reality of His grace.

That’s what the Christian life is about. It’s not tithing, it’s not religious ordinances etc., etc. We’re not doing things to get something from God. That’s why people do those things. We’re simply being who we are and we get to be that because of our faith in Him. 

Woody Hayes and more

“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team.” – Woody Hayes

To go on with my testimony from Ohio State: During my sophomore year I applied for a job at the Faculty Club and got it. I was a waitress/busser for their lunch shift and as a result I saw some of the real bigwigs of the university.

For instance, I helped serve lunch more than once to OSU President Edward Jennings (who served from 1981-1989) as he held a closed-door meeting.

I was still in my “movie star realm” to some extent and so when he left behind half of his club sandwich (with turkey breast and bacon) after one such meeting, I took a big bite out of one section before putting it on the bussing cart! I would then go on to bragging to friends about doing this!

Another time, and this is a story I loved to tell people when informing them about my time at Ohio State (in Chicago, NYC, etc.), I took a pen Woody Hayes (then a history professor) left behind one afternoon as he sat in his usual spot at the end of a long dining table specifically designated for seasoned professors eating alone. He was eating a bowl of chili that day. I remember so strongly about how he was "holding court," as he often did, with all of the professors on his end intently listening to him.

Everyone has always asked me, “Do you still have the pen?” The answer is no.

The funniest thing about Woody Hayes, though, is I actually met him in high school at some republican donors event held at Ashland College (now a university). My best friend Marcy’s father was the vice president of the college (which has attracted many top conservative leaders to its campus to speak and, in fact, had its public affair school dedicated by none other than Ronald Reagan in 1983, the year after I graduated high school) and so she got the two of us into the event with Woody.

Afterward, I went up to Woody to introduce myself and I remember clearly what a sincere man he was. He asked me if I was going to college and even gave me a little pep talk about succeeding in life! He signed his name on the program I had from the event (and I do still have that, currently in my storage unit), writing in ball pen ink, “Lisa, Good luck to you. YEA, OHIO!”

The thing about Ohio State is I feel like I got the best it could offer me and, by the time I left, I had an incredible resume, including paid summer internships at the Cincinnati Enquirer (as a copy editor and feature writer) and the Cleveland Plain Dealer as a sportswriter who actually broke a front-page national story (including on Dan Rather’s newscast) all through my own doing!

I have written about this before so I am going to go into my archives to try and find it. In the meantime, I found this online a bit ago:

Hayes coached the Ohio State football team for 28 years and took General George Patton as his model of leadership. His hard-nosed discipline gained him a reputation for being fiery. He was very difficult to please, had little tolerance for failure, and sometimes crossed the line when disciplining a player. Over his career, Hayes amassed an incredible win-loss record, but he also created a long list of offenses against players, parents, fans, and sports reporters. During the 1978 Gator Bowl, an opposing player intercepted an Ohio State pass and wound up on the Buckeyes’s sideline. Infuriated, Woody Hayes slugged the boy, nearly knocking off his helmet—all on national television.

Appropriately, Ohio State fired him the next day. But in the weeks that followed, the nation raged, reporters mercilessly piled on, and anyone with a grudge vented his spleen on the humiliated coach. He retreated in silence and shame behind drawn drapes and locked doors.

During that time, Coach Tom Landry was to attend a prestigious banquet in New York and he was free to ask a guest to join him. Normally, he would have taken his wife, Alicia. But this time he appeared with Woody Hayes. Landry’s poignant act of grace lifted Hayes out of his shame and silenced his tormenters. Grace has a way of doing that.

I asked Coach Landry about it at our next board meeting. He said, “I figured that since everybody else was beating up on him, he needed somebody to put an arm around him and tell him he still loved him.” Can you imagine how that felt for Coach Woody Hayes? When he was bent low, feeling ashamed . . . deserving nothing, Landry bent down, lifted him up, and embraced him.

*****

Revelation 7:9: [9] After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

"Here are the people who get through that 'great day of His wrath' and go into the kingdom. It's talking about the Believing Remnant in Israel and they come from every part of the nations out there and God gathers them all back together.

"That's who you see in Nahum 1:7: [7] The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.

"That's what you read about in Revelation 7 and Nahum is picking up on what Micah told you--what Revelation ultimately explains.

"There are only three verses in all of Nahum that have any brightness in them and verse 7 is the first one. You've got 6 verses of helter-skelter, wrath, indignation and vengeance and now you got a verse-- 'Oh, there are going to be some Believers.'

"Talking about the kingdom, Verse 15: [15] Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.

*****

"He's talking to Nineveh in Nahum 2:13: [13] Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.

"God's intention is to bring a complete end to the idolatrous system that gives birth to the rebellious nations against His people. In Nahum, you see the Antichrist show up and be a part of that system that comes out of Assyria.

"Just like Obadiah talked about Edom, and the ancient hatred that the tents of the Edomites have against Israel, now He's going to talk about Assyria, and not just that ancient hatred that they had, but the source of it. It goes all the way back to Nimrod.

Nahum 1: [8] But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

"Now you're back in Genesis 1:2. That's God's judgment on rebellion. 

"Talking about Nineveh, Nahum 1:11: [11] There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the LORD, a wicked counseller.

In II Thessalonians 2, Paul says about the son of perdition: [8] And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

"Wicked is that proper name given to the Antichrist. He counsels against the Lord. Daniel 11 says he takes the kingdom by flatteries. In other words, he's got a philosophy that he's putting out.

Daniel 8: [23] And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.

[25] And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.

"What you have there is the future of Greece and the Greek empire takes over the Media-Persia empire and then the Greek empire is destroyed. Notice that description of the Antichrist as the king of the north:

"He understands dark sayings. He has some wisdom. He knows some things. He's going to attempt to counterfeit God's ability to reveal secrets.

Verse 24: [24] And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.

"From Revelation 13 we know he's going to be standing in the power of Satan.

"Notice this guy comes in with a peace policy. He's going to do what Nahum's talking about. He's going to imagine evil against the Lord as a Wicked counselor. He's going to counsel the world about how to bring in peace.

Daniel 11: [21] And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

[22] And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.
[23] And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.

"The guy knows how to talk. With good words and fair speeches he deceives people. When it says it's a 'small people,' it's talking about how the Antichrist is that 'little horn'; he isn't going to need thousands of people to take over.

"By the way, you don't need millions of people to take over a nation. Just take over the government. When you have a coup, you just need to have people in strategic points and places.

[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.
[25] And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him.
[26] Yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat shall destroy him, and his army shall overflow: and many shall fall down slain.
[27] And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end shall be at the time appointed.

"I love that thing about how 'they shall speak lies at one table.' They're having a counsel; they're having a negotiation and they're lying through their teeth to one another. The way the Antichrist takes over is with a policy book.

"It's funny, the Democrat and Republican parties, during a presidential election, spend millions in their conventions and they draft a party platform. Now nobody that ever gets elected pays any attention to the party platform.

"They don't follow those things, but this guy has a party platform that he's going to put forth and when he gets it across, he's going to do it! And it's a plan of wickedness."

 

 

Revelation 7:9: [9] After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

"Here are the people who get through that 'great day of His wrath' and go into the kingdom. It's talking about the Believing Remnant in Israel and they come from every part of the nations out there and God gathers them all back together.

"That's who you see in Nahum 1:7: [7] The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.

"That's what you read about in Revelation 7 and Nahum is picking up on what Micah told you--what Revelation ultimately explains.

"There are only three verses in all of Nahum that have any brightness in them and verse 7 is the first one. You've got 6 verses of helter-skelter, wrath, indignation and vengeance and now you got a verse-- 'Oh, there are going to be some Believers.'

"Talking about the kingdom, Verse 15: [15] Behold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace! O Judah, keep thy solemn feasts, perform thy vows: for the wicked shall no more pass through thee; he is utterly cut off.

*****

"He's talking to Nineveh in Nahum 2:13: [13] Behold, I am against thee, saith the LORD of hosts, and I will burn her chariots in the smoke, and the sword shall devour thy young lions: and I will cut off thy prey from the earth, and the voice of thy messengers shall no more be heard.

"God's intention is to bring a complete end to the idolatrous system that gives birth to the rebellious nations against His people. In Nahum, you see the Antichrist show up and be a part of that system that comes out of Assyria.

"Just like Obadiah talked about Edom, and the ancient hatred that the tents of the Edomites have against Israel, now He's going to talk about Assyria, and not just that ancient hatred that they had, but the source of it. It goes all the way back to Nimrod.

Nahum 1: [8] But with an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof, and darkness shall pursue his enemies.

"Now you're back in Genesis 1:2. That's God's judgment on rebellion. 

"Talking about Nineveh, Nahum 1:11: [11] There is one come out of thee, that imagineth evil against the LORD, a wicked counseller.

In II Thessalonians 2, Paul says about the son of perdition: [8] And then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming:

"Wicked is that proper name given to the Antichrist. He counsels against the Lord. Daniel 11 says he takes the kingdom by flatteries. In other words, he's got a philosophy that he's putting out.

Daniel 8: [23] And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up.

[25] And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand.

"What you have there is the future of Greece and the Greek empire takes over the Media-Persia empire and then the Greek empire is destroyed. Notice that description of the Antichrist as the king of the north:

"He understands dark sayings. He has some wisdom. He knows some things. He's going to attempt to counterfeit God's ability to reveal secrets.

Verse 24: [24] And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people.

"From Revelation 13 we know he's going to be standing in the power of Satan.

"Notice this guy comes in with a peace policy. He's going to do what Nahum's talking about. He's going to imagine evil against the Lord as a Wicked counselor. He's going to counsel the world about how to bring in peace.

Daniel 11: [21] And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries.

[22] And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.
[23] And after the league made with him he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up, and shall become strong with a small people.

"The guy knows how to talk. With good words and fair speeches he deceives people. When it says it's a 'small people,' it's talking about how the Antichrist is that 'little horn'; he isn't going to need thousands of people to take over.

"By the way, you don't need millions of people to take over a nation. Just take over the government. When you have a coup, you just need to have people in strategic points and places.

[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.
[25] And he shall stir up his power and his courage against the king of the south with a great army; and the king of the south shall be stirred up to battle with a very great and mighty army; but he shall not stand: for they shall forecast devices against him.
[26] Yea, they that feed of the portion of his meat shall destroy him, and his army shall overflow: and many shall fall down slain.
[27] And both these kings' hearts shall be to do mischief, and they shall speak lies at one table; but it shall not prosper: for yet the end shall be at the time appointed.

"I love that thing about how 'they shall speak lies at one table.' They're having a counsel; they're having a negotiation and they're lying through their teeth to one another. The way the Antichrist takes over is with a policy book.

"It's funny, the Democrat and Republican parties, during a presidential election, spend millions in their conventions and they draft a party platform. Now nobody that ever gets elected pays any attention to the party platform.

"They don't follow those things, but this guy has a party platform that he's going to put forth and when he gets it across, he's going to do it! And it's a plan of wickedness."

 

 

God's version of the United Nations

Revelation 16: [13] And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

[14] For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.

These demonic spirits are going to go out and deceive the nations into coming together to fight against the Lord Jesus Christ, explains Richard Jordan.

The issue here is that these spirits--the devils that come out of the mouth of the dragon, the beast and the false prophet--go out and deceive the nations, and through their ministrations all the world is deceived. The kings of the earth are deceived into gathering themselves together against the Lord.

Zephaniah 3:8 is one of the more peculiar verses in the Bible. It’s so different from what the religious mind has taught you to think that sometime it’s a little difficult to comprehend.

[8] Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.

When does Jehovah rise up to the prey? At the Second Coming. He says, “For my determination is to gather the nations.” Here’s what God determined to do.

Somebody says, “I knew it; God established the United Nations.” Well, you know, that’s not too far from the truth, but it isn’t the way they mean it.

“My determination,” God says, “is to form a United Nations that I may gather the kingdoms together to pour on them all my fierce anger.”

That’s why over in Isaiah 10 when God describes the Antichrist, He says he’s “the rod of mine indignation in my hand.” God uses the wrath of men to praise Him.

Oh, I hope I can impress upon your heart about this. There’s something going on here in the deception of the religious system, and the world system out there, that God Almighty is going to use in order to accomplish His purpose.

Again, verse 13: [13] And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet.

Notice that these spirits are satanic and they’re working miracles. Now, for some people, a supernatural demonstration, or the appearance of one, is the answer to any question or doubt whether or not God was involved.

These spirits of devils, Satan’s cohorts, are working miracles and God is allowing it in order to use that to damn some people with and destroy them.

You know, that’s heavy to me when I think about it. I think how God can use even that rebellion of men to accomplish His purpose.

Revelation 13: [11] And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.

[12] And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
[13] And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
[14] And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

This man has a power and a wonders ministry! He’s going along and the big banner over his cause is, “Power Ministry! Miracles! Wonders! Signs! Miraculous demonstrations!”

Verse 15: [15] And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.

This false prophet has miracle-working power that is satanic in origin and is designed to carry on the purpose of Satan.

Revelation 16: [16] And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.

The Hebrew word for Armageddon means “the hill of the crowd,” or “the hill of the multitude.” You’ll find it’s a very popular place in your Old Testament for wars and battles. They don’t just take place on the hill, but there’s a great plain that goes out called the “plain of Megiddo.” Joel calls it the “valley of decision.”

There’s this wrong idea that there’s just going to be this one big battle in this valley and that’s where Christ’s going to come, and it’s all going to be over with, but the Second Advent of Jesus Christ is a LONG campaign; a war waged across all of Palestine.

The place where Armageddon is one place of intense warfare where Jesus Christ personally meets the Antichrist. Jesus Christ fights all up and down the Mediterranean coast, fighting in all of that area.

Revelation 14: [19] And the angel thrust in his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great winepress of the wrath of God.
[20] And the winepress was trodden without the city, and blood came out of the winepress, even unto the horse bridles, by the space of a thousand and six hundred furlongs.

When he talks about the blood up to the horse’s bridles, he’s not talking about the blood being that deep, in the sense that a swimming pool is up to my neck. He’s talking about being SPLASHED that high.

It’s not like dirt; you can’t pile up blood—it would flow out. What it is like is in Zechariah 1: [7] Upon the four and twentieth day of the eleventh month, which is the month Sebat, in the second year of Darius, came the word of the LORD unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo the prophet, saying,
[8] I saw by night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse, and he stood among the myrtle trees that were in the bottom; and behind him were there red horses, speckled, and white.

The army comes back and the first horses are red, the next horses are speckled and the next horses are white.

Notice how long it says in verse 20: “By the space of a thousand six hundred furlongs.” That’s estimated to be 180 miles. You go out 180 miles from Jerusalem and draw a radius around. Even beyond the border of the country, blood’s going to splattered!

You know something, there’s going to be a real war that goes on over there. It’s going to cover a lot more than Armageddon. So why is Armageddon the issue over here? Because, folks, in any battle, there’s a key point where things turn.

The Antichrist, when he sends the armies of the world, and the nations are against the Lord Jesus Christ, and Jesus Christ comes back and starts destroying them, that begins to cause that blood to flow and the campaign to begin.

You’ll see verses after verses on this battle, but there comes a point where the Antichrist comes himself against the Lord and that’s where that (key point’s) going to be. Jesus Christ meets him out on that battlefield and destroys his army.

Finding prayer

John 17 begins: [1] These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee:

[2] 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.
[4] I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do.
[5] And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

You see the tremendous focus the Lord Jesus Christ has on glorifying the Father. Everything’s about the Father, explains Richard Jordan.

John 17 is what preachers usually refer to as the Lord’s Prayer—the real one. It’s at the end of the discourse He has with His apostles in the Upper Room before He goes into the Garden, and He prays with them. It’s the most extended prayer in the Scripture.

Prayer is just you talk to God, communicate with Him. That’s all prayer is. People get all bent out of shape about the doing of it. Prayer’s like breathing; it’s sort of a natural kind of a thing.

You know, if you get short of breath and you start thinking about it, you make yourself breathe. The doctor says, “Take a deep breath,” and you do, but he doesn’t tell you to keep breathing. You have an involuntary muscle system that just makes you breathe and you don’t even think about it.

Well, prayer is really designed to be that way. If you overthink it, it’s like thinking about, “Am I breathing? Did I breathe enough? Am I going to breathe next time?” You get to overthinking it and all of a sudden it gets to be confusing.

Prayer is just communicating and fellowshipping with God; telling Him what’s on your heart, what’s going on in your life. Now, when you do that, the natural course of things, just the way we’re made, when we commune with someone we talk awhile and then we let them talk to us. The way God talks to us is through His Word.

What prayer winds up being is simply the catalyst whereby we take what His Word says and apply it to the details of our life. And as we apply it to our life and we think it through, we get into this renewing of our mind process where we take the doctrine, and take it out of the pages of Scripture, just as the doctrine is, and it becomes life to us because we put it into our experience. Prayer is the catalyst that accomplishes that.

That’s why I say to you, if you live a prayerless life, you live your life in the flesh. Prayer is not a formality kind of a thing. I was talking to a fellow one time who said, “You know, when you pray it’s like when you go to a job interview—you need to plan what you’re going to say.”

I said, “You don’t think God is hearing you plan that?!” You see, you can’t sectionalize your life away from God. God hears everything you’re thinking and He hears you planning on talking to Him!

It’s like this thing that’s in the news about this team bugging the offices of the opposition’s coaches in order to listen in on the offensive and defensive coaches and their communications.

That’s sort of the way the Lord is with you. He’s got you bugged, man. He knows anything you say, anything you think. He knows it all, so just relax because He’s for you. He’s not doing it so He can, you know, knock you around. He does it because He desires to be that involved in your life.

So when you pray, really you just express your heart to the Lord. One of the privileges and one of the neat things about audible prayer, praying in a group, is you begin to hear what’s in someone’s heart.

One of the great assets of prayer in fellowship, in bonding people together, is you begin to hear this person talking to the Lord—what is his thinking process. It’s a wonderful thing where you’re able to share . . .

Now, most people know that when they pray . . .  half the time people are praying for the crowd. You know, everybody hears me say this, that and the next thing. That’s when you make it religion.

 But when it’s real, you’re able to look into the person’s heart and that’s what you’re doing in John 17. You’re looking into the very heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the most intense time in His life.

Here’s the night before He goes to Calvary. All of the plans of eternity, expressed and carried out in time, are brought to a head this night that we’re reading about.

When you go through chapters 17-19, all of the course of the ages, the plans of the godhead from eternity past about eternity future, all pivot on Jesus Christ doing what the Father had planned for Him to do in these evenings. That is, go to the Cross.

Those events are the little fulcrum upon which all of redemptive history resides. So in that kind of an intense moment, the Lord Jesus Christ allows His apostles, and us through the Book of John, to hear and to see into His mind.

One writer when he wrote about this chapter, he entitled it, “Take off your feet for you’re on holy ground.” He wasn’t far from wrong about that because of the intimacy of openness that you get here.

Radical conclusion of Nineveh's king, million people

(new article tomorrow)

"There isn't much written about Jonah, but most of the time the (writers) overlook the fact that the two commissions in the book really are somewhat different.

Jonah 3 begins: [1] And the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the second time, saying,

[2] Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.
[3] So Jonah arose, and went unto Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceeding great city of three days' journey.

"Nineveh is this huge city and when it says that it is exceeding great, look at chapter 4. The Lord is talking to Jonah about him being upset that God forgave Nineveh and He says to him in verse 11: [11] And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

"When He talks about persons that can't discern between their right hand and their left hand, He's talking about people who have not come to the age of accountability," explains Richard Jordan.

"If you go back to Deuteronomy 1, look at when He talked about the people in the wilderness, how they didn't know good from evil. He talked about it in Isaiah 7.

"There's a place of accountability a person comes to and there are 120,000 people in Nineveh who are minors. That gives you an idea that the population of Nineveh was pretty big. You'll see figures given that are somewhere between 600,000 and a million people.

"The International Bible Encyclopedia says that Nineveh was surrounded by a wall. Donald Trump would be proud of them. A wall that was 100 feet high. It was wide enough for three chariots to ride three abreast on it. So, the wall would have had to been much wider than this room.

"If he goes three days journey to cross the thing, what's a day's journey? Maybe 30 miles? Take a big city like Chicago. When it says it's an exceeding big city, you're talking about this great, humongous metropolis. We're not talking about a po-dunk holler. We're not talking about Plum Nilly or Slapout in central Alabama.

"Jonah's going to go there and preach and say, 'In 40 days Nineveh is going to be overthrown.' By the way, Nineveh is 600 miles from the coast. Jonah goes down to Joppa on the Mediterranean coast, gets in the boat, they go out.

"He tells those guys in chapter 1, 'Throw me overboard because I'm the problem.' Before they do, they row: [13] Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring it to the land; but they could not: for the sea wrought, and was tempestuous against them.

"The indication is that they tried to get the ship back to where they left from, which would be Joppa.

"Well, after the storm calms itself . . . Jonah is overboard, the fish gets him and the fish vomits him out. It doesn't tell you where in Joppa he vomited him out but wherever it was, Nineveh, if you look on a map, was like 600 miles from the coast of where he was.

"Jonah had to travel from the coast all the way to Nineveh to do what you're reading in chapter 3. This isn't just one day he's burped out of the fish and the next day he's there.

"This took awhile and that's important to notice because when you see what happens in response to his preaching, obviously the people of Nineveh know about Jonah.

"There's stuff going on here that you have to read behind the lines about. By the way, it was 40 days and 40 in the Bible is the number of testing. They don't have forever to get right. Now they've got 39 days to get right.

"Jonah goes three days journey in and says, 'You've got 37 more days and the wall's coming down and everything's going to fall around you because of your wickedness. The judgment of God is coming because of your sin.'

"He preaches, 'Here is the consequence of your sin: Destruction; you're going to be overthrown.'

[4] And Jonah began to enter into the city a day's journey, and he cried, and said, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.
[5] So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them.

"Now that's a startling statement. You read that and you say, 'Whoah!' What did they believe? They believed the word that God sent them through Jonah.

"Remember verse 2 says, [2] Arise, go unto Nineveh, that great city, and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.

"They heard this strange character; he's not a Ninevehite. He's a stranger. What that tells you right off about the Gentiles--what you learn in Jonah, as opposed to Nahum, is that God is telling Israel, 'Listen, the problem isn't that the Gentiles won't believe; the problem is you aren't doing your job of giving the Word to them.'

Chapter 3 goes on : [6] For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

[7] And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water:
[8] But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

"That's just a spirit of deep humility and abasement. You remember Job puts on sackcloth and sits in the ashes. That's an outward expression of, 'We realize we're the problem.'

"Now you can do that as a ritual, but God looks at the heart. In these people's case, it's obviously an expression of the heart. That's why you have so many verses that describe it here.

"Notice in verse 7, it doesn't take long that word gets back to the king. When I read that, it's almost just unbelievable that this heathen pagan king and his nobles, and all the men of Nineveh, could come to that kind of conclusion.

" . . . That they could believe God and have that radical a change and come down to the end and have the king say, 'We'll cry to God and get rid of all the evil and, who can tell; maybe God will take notice.'

"He doesn't think he has any claim on God; he knows he's an outcast. He doesn't say, 'If we do this, then God will do that.' He says, 'This is what we need to do. Our sin is going to get us this judgment, so let's put it away; let's turn our back on it. Let's realize we've been wrong. There's a real God in Israel.' "

Ultimate ground for ALL of our being

To pick up where I left off in my testimony, I came in second among all the competing females (more than 200 from all different ages ) in the bicycling portion of Dick Schafrath's renowned triathlon in my hometown of Loudonville, OH.

As a team, Karen and I didn't fare too great. Our canoe actually tipped over near the starting line. This was a huge embarrassment for me since I knew some of the volunteers working the event, including my history teacher, Mr. Carlisle. Also, my brother had worked for the real big canoe livery on Route 3 going outside the city limits and I should have known better.

When it came time for the running, I did fine but Karen had to stop several times because she was overheated running the big hills in 90 degree heat. What helped tremendously was my knowledge of the roads again. To my surprise, Schafrath picked the same route I biked to work on during the summers between my freshman and sophomore years of college.

Wally Campgrounds (yes, it was there long before "Wally World" in the Chevy Chase classic) is where I managed the Putt-Putt and helped man the waterslide for two summers (my freshman and sophomore years at college) and would always ride my bike to work.

No one more than me knows what an advantage I had as someone who knew very well the bicycling course Schafrath had picked. After I bought my 14-speed Raleigh bicycle during the summer of my junior year in high school I quickly learned to ride the hills on the highways surrounding our little village and this eventually led to me taking on more and more highways leading to more and more different places.

As a quick aside, I loved to ride my bike to Malabar Farm where Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall had their wedding. A very picturesque landscape surrounded the beautiful old farm with white-painted buildings and a quaint bed-and-breakfast estate.

I loved to cycle through the Mohican State Forest, stopping at the famous gorge and the fire tower usually (there was a big old-fashioned wooden image of Smokey the Bear I loved) and then stopping at the Mohican State Park Memorial Shrine (on Route 95) that had engraved names and plaques with portraits of hundreds of Ohioans who served in all wars.

There was a stone slab bench behind the little stone building that sat on a beautiful hill filled with trees and the back looked out at woods with a drop-off.

This shrine, partly because it had an outdoor stone drinking fountain on the property, became a "secret spot" of mine that I treasure to this day (more than you could ever imagine actually).

There was a prominent stone inscription across the back of the building with the verse from Psalm 121: "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."

There were times when I reached this spot and sat totally alone on that back bench and was lost in tears of grief and heartbreak. I remember pouring my heart out there to God and Jesus Christ when I was in the "depths of despair." I remember praying about my future and for emotional "strength" to go into it with courage.

This was a place I relied on going to, both in the summer after my senior year of high school (when I first discovered it) and then through the first two years of college when I was home for summer break.

*****

God is all-powerful; He is the Creator. But He can create and He can also delegate. He can give His power to others for them to operate.

If you know anything about delegated power, you know that’s a very threatening thing because, you know, you have micro-managers that want to control everything and macro-managers that just tell you, “Here’s the goal—go get it.”

When God created all things, Colossians 1:16 says, [16] For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him:

He created positions to whom He delegated authority to work and have the “powers that be” be ordained of God, explains Richard Jordan.

What delegating His authority means is He’s willing to share of Himself with others. When you think about God as a triune God, sometimes we just think, “He’s trinity, holy, holy, holy, big deal.”

You need to understand how important it is; we’re not just monotheistic, believing in one God. It’s not enough to say I believe in God; Satan’s the “god of this world.” You might be believing in the wrong one.

You need to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can’t even believe in “christ” because the devil is a christ in Ezekiel 28. You need to believe in the Lord’s Christ.

The trinity is the demonstration of the trustworthiness of the godhead. If there was only one person in the godhead and He said, “This is it and it’s it because I said so,” how would you know He’s right and you could trust Him?

Do you just take one person’s word for anything? It would be an arbitrary statement. If somebody said it and another person witnessed it and said, “Yep, that’s what He said and He’s pretty consistent,” you’d question him because you’d wonder, “Well, are you all?”

But if you had a third person, these three people in the godhead have lived together forever. They’ve seen everything the other one has done. And they can testify of the integrity of the other members of the godhead.

That’s a good thing when you think about it. When one member of the godhead said something you can trust it because you’ve got two eternal witnesses to tell you, “He’s never said something wrong. He’s always spoken out of His goodness. He’s always been a lover. Love works no ill toward his neighbor. You can trust Him.”

It’s not an independent statement; it’s an eternal witness. That’s why Jesus said, “If I testify of myself my witness isn’t true, but I’ve got others to testify of me.”

So in the triune God you’ve got the godhead, and you know what every member of the godhead does? They all live for each other. The Father lives to exalt the Son, the Son lives to exalt the Father and the Spirit lives to exalt the Son. Every one of them exalts the other; they all live spontaneously for one another.

So the life of God is not lived to see what I can get out of it. God’s life is to give to others! That’s the way God’s life operates.

So when you talk about His omnipotence, it’s not, “Get all I can and can all I get.” You see, He has power to share His life.

Here’s the godhead and you think, “Why in the world would they have made creation?” Because they want to take this life that they have and spread it out—they want to GIVE it! They’re interested in moving out with it and they have the power to do that. And they have power to delegate because God is love.

If we’re the church of the living God it’s because we have a personal relationship with Him and He’s good because He’s loving.

*****

The Bible is considered the greatest love story ever written because it is all about real people choosing to be in a real love relationship with the Creator of the universe--the one who says of Himself, "God is love."

For those who believe the Book includes fables, concocted characters and made-up allegories written by men, there's nothing really real about their love.

A best-selling Christian memoir from the past includes this passage: “With our own love stories, every detail comes alive. Our own love stories are so poignant, so detailed, so unforgettable—at least to us. When it’s someone else’s love story, however, we will be polite and listen, but usually it’s entirely forgettable. It’s like looking at someone else’s vacation pictures. When I have skin in the game, the outcome all of a sudden matters to me and I become engaged.”

*****

Believers are in a special type of love affair with the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who brings God into EVERY aspect, facet, experience, etc., of life.

I John 4:7 says, “Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.” That means if you don’t know God, you don't know how to love people.

When you live in a consciousness of God’s love for you in Christ, it gives you an insight. You’ve got the information, and when you believe it, it becomes the energy, the life, the transforming power down in your soul that His life then works out through you.

It’s a love that abounds in knowledge and in judgment. It’s a mental-attitude love. It’s the capacity to look at a thing and value and esteem it the way God does.

At a Bible conference once I was asked during the Q&A session, “What do you find the most exciting subject in the Bible?”

For me personally it’s to stand back and look at who the Bible says Jesus Christ is and appreciate the fact that I’m in Him and that I’m complete in Him. He is the source of all my blessings, and the source of my true, real identity, and He's the one I have all my status in.

You see, the thing that's so wonderful about the grace of God is that it makes Jesus Christ everything! And the Bible says that it pleased the Father that in Him should "all fullness dwell.” If you asked God the Father what is to Him the most exciting subject in all the universe, He'd say, “My Son.”

Any way you slice it, dice it, look at it, think about it, take it apart, put it together, Jesus Christ is the apple of the Father's eye, as Psalm 17 tells us. He's the thing that causes the Father's heart to rejoice. He's the one.

It's mind-boggling when you look at who the Scripture says He is. It sort of numbs your mind. It's so big, you can just never get your arms around it.

*****

When Jesus Christ came back to earth following His death on the Cross, He said to His disciple known as “doubting Thomas,” “Just come and feel me so you know I’m real.”

The reason Christ is called the Word is because He’s the manifest person of the godhead; He's the one who brings God out of the theory—the ether and the unknown—and down into the place where He could actually enter into your experience.

He steps out of eternity where He is and steps into His creation and literally takes it upon Himself. And that’s something my mind doesn't grasp! He literally joins Himself in creation to Him, and in that unique person of all of the universe—the celebrity of all time—He becomes the man Christ Jesus.

When you look at that, you say, “Wow, I understand what Jeremiah's talking about back there when he writes, 'Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee Lord.’ He's saying, 'Man, there's nobody like Him! Nobody!’

You say, “Wow, God, thou art great—who wouldn't fear you?! Who wouldn't bow before you and say, 'You're the man!'?"

After Thomas did as Christ instructed, he cried, “My Lord and my God,”  to which Christ responded, “Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.”

When He says, “I'm the Lord, there's none like me,” He's saying, “There isn't any room in my heaven and earth for anybody who says he's me. No room out there. I've been all over creation; I've looked, I've seen; there isn't anybody like me out there.”

When John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” the statement’s saying, “I am the ultimate ground of all being and existence. Without me, there's no existence. Without me there's nothing.”

Paul says in Colossians that “by him all things consist.” In Acts 17, Paul says of God, “in whom we live and move and have our being.” How do you know there's a God? Well, how do you know who you are?!

You see, whatever you call God—whatever you name Him and whoever He is, if He's just that “holy other” that you can't contact and don't know who it is, like the Unknown God of the Athenians, at least you have to recognize there has to be some grounds for existence; some reason to believe you exist. There are great philosophers in the world who don't believe you exist. They believe all of this is an illusion.

By the way, when Jesus said, “I am the truth,” that's what He meant. He wasn't talking about, “I’m just always right and you're always wrong.” He wasn't talking about truth like “two plus two equals four.”

He was talking about truth in the ultimate basic sense of the ultimate ground of ALL of our being and who we are—the essence of our being—and Christ said, “It all resides in me.” Now, there's not a sane person on the planet who would ever claim that!

earth flat? Not Bible

Psalm 33: [3] Sing unto him a new song; play skilfully with a loud noise.

[4] For the word of the LORD is right; and all his works are done in truth.

I love that "play skilfully," says Richard Jordan. You know, a lot of folks play with loud noise, but He says "play skillfully." That means be on pitch. Here’s what you’re to sing and praise and be excited about: "For the word of the Lord is right."

David writes in Psalm 8, "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained . . ."

When you ordain something, you order it and set it up in a very specific way. That's why when people ask, "Why am I here?" the answer is, "God ordained some things that you're a part of."

When you do something with your fingers, you're doing it with a great deal of skill and carefulness—with purpose. The finger of God is a reference to the Holy Spirit.

In Deuteronomy, when God wrote the tables of stone and gave them to Moses, it says He wrote with His finger. In Luke 11, when the Lord Jesus Christ refers back to the finger of God, He calls Him the "Holy Spirit."

In talking about the greatness of the Messiah, Isaiah says, "Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Who hath directed the Spirit of the LORD, or being his counseller hath taught him?"

It's like God figured to Himself, "You know that lake over there—I want it to have so many gallons of water." He goes over and dips out so much dirt—gets it out of the way so it will hold so much water—and then He fills it up.

Now, you know He didn't literally do it that way, but the point is He had a plan. He knew just how big He wanted the Pacific Ocean to be, just how big He wanted the Indian Ocean, the Adriatic. He had a plan minutely designed.

The word "span" in the passage refers to a way of measuring, akin to a measuring stick. God measured the distance between the earth and the sun and made it exactly the 93 million miles that it is.

You ever think about the fact that the universe is put together with that kind of care? Ordinances. That's why everything works the way it does.

Isaiah asks pretty much the same question of Israel when he writes:

[21] Have ye not known? have ye not heard? hath it not been told you from the beginning? have ye not understood from the foundations of the earth?
[22] 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:

If God sits on "the circle of the earth," what shape do you think the earth is? Nobody who was ever a Bible-believer thought the earth was flat. You know who thought the earth was flat? Scientists. The people who were stating the science of their day.

God created the universe as tent for Him to dwell in. He was creating a house in which He intended to live. He created it in a way that honored, pleased and satisfied Him. He set it up the way He wanted it set up.

*****

Concerning the earth, these presumed masterminds (Plato, Aristotle, etc.) came up with such bizarre, hare-brained ideas as to be found laughable by any civilized intelligent standard.

If the Bible were to assert that the earth was carried on the shoulders of the god Atlas, who stood on the backs of giant tortoises, which stood on the backs of elephants, this would be more than sufficient reason to discredit the Holy Scriptures as being of God. And still the Greek scholars are revered today by those who refuse to recognize the wisdom of God and His Holy Book.

In contrast, Job, the oldest book in the Bible, explains that God spread the skies over empty space and "hangeth the earth upon nothing." (Job 26:7)

Isaiah, a book dating as far back as 698 B.C., confirms that the Lord sits enthroned above the "circle of the earth." (Isaiah 40:22)

Up until the 15^th century, without the benefit of a telescope or a knowledge of the physics of astronomy, no one knew nor would many people believe the earth was not flat.

As Bible teacher J. Vernon McGee used to say, the word "circle" is synonymous with "globe"; a round geometric figure.

The Bible is not a book of science and yet not even in one point does it contradict any principle of modern science that has been established as fact rather than mere theory.

College Christian memories

For my sophomore year at Ohio State I lived in an all-female dorm on the north side of campus.

One evening after coming back from dinner at the cafeteria, a girl came knocking on doors all down our hallway looking for someone to play basketball in an outdoor court that was just outside our dorm building.

I played briefly on the girl's basketball team in junior high (and I was tall at 5' 10") so I did pretty good with her group of athletic-type females and a couple of days later this same girl, Karen, came to our dorm again, this time looking specifically for me to come out and play in a pickup game.

Karen was a year older than me and studying biology. I ended up inviting her to be my partner for a much-touted triathlon being put on in Loudonville by Dick Schafrath. It consisted of bicycling, canoeing and running.

Schafrath, who later became an Ohio State Senator, owned a canoe livery in Loudonville (still recognized as "The Canoe Capital of Ohio") and I was actually a classmate and friend of his son, Ty.

Schafrath was a real legend in Ohio football history. He was captain for the Ohio State Buckeyes under Woody Hayes and won a national championship in 1957. He later blocked for Jim Brown on the Cleveland Browns 1964 NFL Championship team.

In the course of training for this triathlon, Karen and I became inextricably connected. We would get up real early and run the track inside Ohio stadium. This was a huge treat because they actually left the famous horseshoe stadium open to students for such uses! We would also run the streets in and out of campus.

Then we'd schedule bicycling excursions together at local parks. As the triathlon got closer, we were adding to our training sessions, both for distance and speed.

The whole time we both knew we were Christians and this was a real anomaly for me. I actually think she was the first Christian I got to know after starting college and, believe me, there weren't many to follow--as in maybe three or four other females!

One day Karen asked me if I would go with her to a special meeting being held on campus by Campus Crusade for Christ.

I'd never heard of the group but readily accepted her offer. The thing is--and this was a huge takeaway for me--I was totally turned off by the event!!

I remember not liking that there was this band with drums and electric guitars. I thought the lyrics to the "hymns" were really amateurish--literally stuff like, "Oh Jesus, we love you, Oh Jesus, we adore you."

I remember standing for the longest, longest time along with everyone else in attendance. Even more memorable, though, was how I refused to participate at all while the large crowd, Karen included, lifted their arms in the air and waved them back and forth along with their hands. I thought, "Yuk!"

(to be continued . . .)

Tribute to Swaggart

Hearing about Jimmy Swaggart dying today registered with me in a unique way. For the past week or so, thinking about how best to write up my experience at Ohio State (which was an unbelievable, fundamentally crucial time for me), I actually thought about how was I going to explain that the man who kept me going at the time as a Christian was Swaggart, who I'd watch on my little black-and-white portable TV when I came home (off-campus rental house on Patterson that I shared with two roommates) from classes during my junior year at OSU.

Before you think badly of me, I became fully aware in a relatively short time that he was a "holy roller" Pentecostal preacher not to be trusted. I knew about his scandals when they first became news and I remember being very turned off.

For some reason, even to this day, I've never really been that embarrassed to let Grace Believers know that he was the only preacher I ever really listened to in my adult life prior to finding Shorewood!

I will just as easily tell people that in high school I was a big fan of the Rev. Robert Schuller and his "Hour of Power" national TV show on Sunday mornings.

Schuller was a big deal in my family, as far as watching him on TV and giving him money to support his ministry. We even had some of his "positive thinking" trinkets (as gifts for donations) placed around our kitchen and family room. We even had a kitchen plaque engraved with Schuller's signature slogan: "Tough Times Never Last But Tough People Do."

You see, I was raised by people who believed in preachers. In fact, my dad was saved in his late 30s by the very popular preacher, Dallas Billington, in my hometown of Akron, OH. Billington, the head man at the Akron Baptist Temple, was a patient of my dad (who had a private medical practice in Firestone Park at the time).

I didn't find this out until one day in my 30s, but when I actually finally asked my dad how he became saved, he told me Billington got him saved, even giving his own Bible to my dad during one office visit!

The funny thing is I received my very first Bible as a little child attending Billington's church. It was a pocket-sized red leather King James Bible (New Testament) embossed in gold with the words, "Akron Baptist Temple. The World's Largest Sunday School."

Billington was a big enough name that even my current pastor, Richard Jordan, readily acknowledged knowing all about him when I told him I grew up in his church (from ages 2-5) before we became missionaries in Costa Rica and then Ecuador.

At the time, Akron was home and headquarters for the national "celebrity preachers" Ernest Angley and Rex Humbard!

This is a quick aside, but my mom tells the story of how she shocked fellow missionaries in Costa Rica when she told them her church in Akron had 20 ushers for its main Sunday service.

Well, I guess I got off on a real tangent there, but this is the real meat of my "testimony" after all. After I left for college at 18, I didn't have anyone telling me I had to go to church or anything. I did voluntarily go to a Protestant church (I don't even remember the denomination) that was actually part of the campus at Ohio University, but I don't remember getting anything much from it, and because I only attended by myself, I would skip many Sunday mornings.

Once I got to Ohio State I didn't know of any church to try and don't remember even being very interested in trying to find one. I don't remember how I came across Swaggart, as he was nobody anyone in my family ever mentioned, but I think it must have been through tuning into a Christian TV station.

What I know for sure is I readily gravitated toward him and thought highly of his preaching skills. His Bible was always open and he would walk around with it in his hands as he crisscrossed the stage, sometimes crying, sometimes yelling, sometimes laughing.

I loved his piano playing and thought his singing voice was great. I loved everything about him, as I remember, and would give money to his program because that's what the show was always asking for to keep his ministry going and I was taught by my father to believe in tithing.

I never told anyone in my family about my watching Swaggart and it wasn't until after I met my first (and only!) boyfriend during my junior year that I started to consider Swaggart might be a phony.

Fred was the one to first tell me Swaggart was a "phony" and he would laugh at me for giving money to his program. Of course, Fred was an unbeliever and that's what ultimately led to our breakup.