Unknown and yet well known

Here’s Paul at the end of his life and he doesn’t have any friends. He’s completely abandoned. He’s financially broke.

His friends have forsaken him and he’s standing in front of the Roman government being persecuted, being tried, says Richard Jordan.

You see, he’s not finishing with a $5 million home in the hills with big cars and a big bank account. You say, “What kind of success could he have been?”

Paul says in II Timothy 4: [17] Notwithstanding the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me; that by me the preaching might be fully known, and that all the Gentiles might hear: and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
[18] And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom: to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

He’s got the perspective right. My point is, as he’s looking at what’s happening in II Timothy, and he looks back over his ministry, he says, “You know, we went from nobody knowing this message but me to this thing going all over the known world and there being preachers out there preaching this, churches out there teaching this, and making it known.”

There’s a little book called, “The Apostle Paul and the British Isles,” that explains how Paul, as tradition says, came in contact with the royal family of Great Britain and gave the gospel to them.

You remember in Philippians it talks about the people in Caesar’s household heard the gospel? The royals were actually living in Rome at the time Paul was in that prison and they got the gospel and went home with it.

I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I don’t doubt that it could be true. That’s how the gospel spreads; you know that.

When he finished II Timothy he said, “It’s all in apostasy. I’m in jail, I’m broke and I don’t have any friends.” It went from nobody knowing the message to him making it known, the whole world knowing it, to him in jail.

What that’s an illustration of is, “My strength in made perfect in your weakness.” II Corinthians 12:9: [9] And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

So how would you expect Paul’s epistles to end? Not like the Book of Revelation where it’s, “Woo-hoo, new heaven and new earth!” You expect to see it end in weakness and the Body of Christ has progressed through 2,000 years in the dispensation of grace as “unknown and yet well known.”

II Corinthians 6: [9] As unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed;
[10] As sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing all things.

*****

The crucial thing you have to understand is the course of a nation in today's dispensation of grace is determined by the amount of sound doctrine resident in the populace. That’s what determines the strength of the TRUE church; not the institutional, civil religion, but the true church.

We don’t have to be the majority (we never have been) but our spiritual impact is so powerful. Paul says, “As unknown and yet well-known,” and that’s the way we are, but when that’s so diminished we come to the place where there’s no ability to affect the culture.

A basic sociological truth says that within any group of people, large or small, 10% of the people of the organization (institution, movement, religion, cult, body, etc.) thoroughly committed to one idea, can control the whole organization and carry it in the direction of that ideal.

In the business world you hear about the 80-20 rule (80% of your business comes from 20% of the activity), but the rule of social movement is all you have to have is 10% committed to something to control it.

I say that because if you have 10% of the populace that is committed to the truth, you can influence it. By the way, when 10% of the populace becomes Muslim, are they not thoroughly committed to what they do? 

You watch what’s happening in Europe today and you’re just seeing a foretaste. That stuff's all coming here; it will just come in a different form because it hops the pond and all of the Americas have been different.

The things that hold a culture together have long been dissolved here in the United States and now you have a generation of people with no understanding of what our culture is about.

There’s a revisionist kind of idea and even the simple cultural foundations, and the understanding that carries our culture along, is gone and generations have come along who’ve had that educated out of them. Those people are now taking the control reins of culture.

*****

By II Timothy, Paul had ministered all across Asia into Europe all the way to Rome, planning churches in tremendously diverse cultures, but this is where the reader sees the church move from rule to ruin.

In his parting message to Timothy, Paul writes in II Timothy 4: “For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.”

Paul tells you what his course is in Acts 20:24 when he writes, “But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God.”

That last part of the verse has always kind of tickled my fancy. You know, when you read Paul’s life, that verse helps you understand it. He lived like he had a suicide mania.

If you look at Acts 14, he goes into a city and they drag him outside of town, stone him and leave him for dead. But he gets right back up and you know what he does? He goes right back into the city. 

You say, “No, wait a minute, what kind of deal is that?!” You check the record; up until that point every time a city rejected Paul he shook the dust off his feet and went on to the next one.

But now here’s one where he goes in, they drag him out, stone him and leave him for dead and God resurrects him. I believe he died and God resurrected him. That’s the experience he talks about in II Corinthians 12.

Paul gets up and says, “You know, I’ve been up there in paradise and seen some things that I can’t even tell people about. It was so wonderful I’d like to go back. I’ll go back into the city and maybe they’ll . . . ”

From then on he lived like he had a suicide mania. He would just go right into the mouths of the lions. In fact, here he talks about being delivered out of the mouth of the lion.

The guy had this concept of holding on loosely to earth. When he says, “Neither count I my life dear to myself,” he didn’t say he didn’t love his family, or that he was trying to die tomorrow. He said, “I’m holding it loose. The most precious things to me are not what I possess here.”

When you talk about persecution, or someone coming along and taking what I’ve got, beating me up, putting me in jail, or being shipwrecked time and time again . . .

Read II Corinthians about all the stuff he went through. They did all that stuff to Paul and you think, “Goodnight, I’d have quit about the second verse!”

But he says, “I’m not just going to finish the job, I’m going to do it WITH JOY.” Those two words changed that verse for me. He’s saying, “I’m not just going to endure, I’ve got a joy in this!”

What we wanted anyway

(new article tomorrow)

You can study music, music theory. You can learn all about composing music. You learn about the science of music. You can master the theory and never sit at a keyboard and play a song. Never learn to play for yourself. You can go teach others how to compose music and never learn to play yourself.

You can get married. You can have a legal relationship with your spouse. In every way you’re legally related but, you know, it’s something quite else to enjoy that legal relationship. To walk in the reality of the love and the fellowship of that possession, says Richard Jordan.

You can get all the mechanics of the faith. You can learn all the technical stuff, all the doctrines, and never come really to know Christ.

That’s why Paul says in Philippians 3:10: [10] That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death;

He’s saying, “I want something more than just religion. I want something more than just a bunch of rules and regulations, rites and status and people’s applause. I want to know the reality of who God the Creator is. You know Him through His Son.

Read on: [11] If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead.
[12] Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
[13] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
[14] I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Christ apprehended Paul on the way to Damascus and he said, “I’m focusing on one thing in my life. I want to apprehend the purpose for which He apprehended me! He came along and stopped my wild career.”

When you apprehend someone—Hawaii 5-0 used to say, “Cuff and stuff ’em, Danno.” You apprehend the dude. You arrest him. Paul says, “He arrested me for a reason.”

The song writer said, “In evil long I took delight, unawed by shame or fear, until a new object caught my sight and stopped my wild career.” That happened to Paul and that happens to everybody when they get saved. That’s how you get saved.

Paul said, “My life, everything about what’s going on in my life now is focused on apprehending the thing He apprehended me for.” What did He apprehend Paul for? He made him an apostle by the commandment of God. He gave him an opportunity to have “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” He made him a child of the living God. He made him “complete in Christ.”

Paul never learned one thing beyond what he learned on the way to Damascus. “Who art thou, Lord?” “I am Jesus.” He learned that at a deeper, more intimate understanding. “I’m crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but Christ.” That’s really all you ever learn. You learn, “It’s not me, it’s Him.” But you learn it better, more fully.

He says in verses 13-14: [13] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before,
[14] I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

What’s the mark? “That I may know Him.” He’s the mark and “I press toward the mark.” The mark was the Lord Jesus Christ. The goal was to lay hold on Him and to know Him! And Paul just viewed everything in his life through that lens.

You know, the first thing in getting what you want is to decide what you want. People float around and say, “I’m miserable.” Well, what do you want? “I don’t know what I want.” Well, then no wonder you’re miserable.

Sit down and decide what you want , because if you don’t know what you want, well, if you aim at nothing you’ll hit it every time. Paul knew what he wanted. He scrutinized EVERY thing in his life through that one goal: “Are these things in my life going to advance my knowing Him, or are they going to hinder my knowing Him?”

This is the thing about grace—grace doesn’t say, “Don’t do this and don’t do that; that’s sin. You do that and God’s going to be mad at you.” God says you’re accepted in Christ. We’re living different here, folks.

You know what Paul said? “All things are lawful for me but all things are not expedient. I can go out and do anything, but if I do it doesn’t enhance my getting the goal and that goal is to know Him.”

The grace of God teaches you. You have to be taught. We’re kind of dumb; we don’t get it on our own. The Crosswork teaches you to “deny ungodliness and worldly lust.”

When you know the Lord, what happens is you figure out how He’s thinking and He says, “Deny that stuff.” Why? That’s what killed the Lord Jesus Christ. He died to put that away. Why? So He could put these things that are better into your life so that you might live. Isn’t that what you wanted anyway?

What's in our long-term best interest:

For eons Christians have had this quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. leveled at them as a criticism: "Some people are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good."

The Bible's message, though, is that living life on earth--in all its details--with eternity in mind, is not a means of escaping reality. Rather, it's living smartly with an elevated understanding of what's already true about us.

Salvation for you and me is more than just dying and going to heaven. Our hope is more than just yearning and waiting for that. Our ultimate joy is not simply escaping the problems of this world, says Richard Jordan.

Sometime we think, "Oh, if I could just get out of this trouble." The church the Body of Christ has been equipped--in fact, it's been CREATED specifically FOR the capacity to endure through the difficulties.

Paul says in Romans 8:18, [18] For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Our hope really is the world's redemption along with ours. Our hope is that while we're here on earth, there are things we can do to REDEEM the time and bring people into the hope that we have. The glory that will be revealed in us gives us the capacity to function NOW in a way that's effective.

Paul writes in Romans 8:14-15: [14] For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
[15] For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

The spirit of bondage comes from the law; it comes from relying upon your resources to produce something that God accepts. That never works and it always keeps you afraid because you have that consciousness that you don't measure up. That isn't how God deals with us.

That Spirit of adoption is God the Holy Spirit. You've received right now the Spirit that's going to resurrect you out there in the future. Adoption is to be placed in the position of an adult in God's family. I right now have the Holy Spirit who's going to produce that.

That word "Abba" is an Aramaic word kind of like saying "Papa." It's like looking at your dad and being able to say, "Papa, I trust you." The only other person in the Bible who ever said that is in Mark 14. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. He's in the garden of Gethsemane facing Calvary.

He falls on the ground and prays, "Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee; take away this cup from me: nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt." When He does that He says, "Abba, Father. I trust you above all other. I know you have my interest only on your heart."

You and I have that ability because we know the security of our future to trust Him now as though we were already there. Romans 8:16-17: [16] The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
[17] And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

To be an "heir" is an inheritance. You have an inheritance out there in the future. "Heirs of God." That's who gives you the inheritance. You're an heir of the Creator of all things. A JOINT-heir with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the extent of your inheritance.

Now, notice the suffering and the glory in verse 18. There's a correlation between what we go through now and the glory. When you put in your mind the things that are coming, it gives you the capacity to look at what's happening now and say, "Hey, that's what's future and that's what's lasting." It gives you the capacity to be sustained. It gives you patience not to be thrown off and just to keep at it.

Hebrews 12:2 is the classic illustration of Romans 8. The verse says, [2] Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Notice, for the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross and said, "It's no big deal." It was a big deal when He was going through it. But He said, "When you compare it with that glory, that joy, with what's going to be accomplished, it's no big deal." The Lord Jesus Christ kept in His mind a realm of understanding about what was being accomplished at the Cross; what God was going to do through the Crosswork.

When you and I keep that same viewpoint in our own thinking, it gives us the capacity to be sustained; the capacity to put on RIGHT NOW . . . when he says '"put on the helmet of salvation," right now we're to think and view ourselves in light of what God's going to do with us in the ages to come.

We're not just going to say, "Well, out yonder when I get there . . ." We're going to put it on right now and it's going to produce in us a thinking process.

Ephesians 1 says, [15] Wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus, and love unto all the saints,
[16] Cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers;
[17] That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
[18] The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
[19] And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power.

Notice He's the Father of glory. We're talking about the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. God the Father has a plan; He calls it glory. To exalt His Son. He explains what the plan is in the rest of this chapter. We're a part of it.

Paul writes of "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him." He wants you to KNOW something. When you know it, chapter 3, Paul prays that it then would empower you. It can't empower you until you KNOW it, because it's the WORD that you know and becomes the energizing force when you believe it.

What he's talking about in the verse is there's an attitude; a spirit. There's an outlook that you get when you have the wisdom that comes from the revelation of God's Word.

When you get an understanding of God's Word, "the eyes of your understanding being enlightened", it gives you a spirit; an attitude, a confidence, a good hope. That hope, the "helmet of salvation," that's the issue. And that is what we're to live in right now.

*****

In I Corinthians, Paul is writing to the most carnal, fleshy, worldly-minded, completely self-oriented church. They evidently wrote Paul a series of questions and he's answering them. Before he does that, though, he spends six chapters rebuking them. You can divide I Corinthians into two sections. Chapters 7-16 is his reply.

I Corinthians 6: [1] Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints? It's as if you see somebody do something and you say, 'How dare you?!' In other words, Paul's saying, 'This makes no sense considering who you are!'

What's happening is two guys are in a fight and they can't come to an agreement, so one of them sues the other; goes to the law to settle the argument.

Here's why they shouldn't do that: [2] Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
[3] Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
[4] If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
[5] I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

You get the idea. He's saying, "Your destiny is to judge and rule and reign in the heavens over the angelic creation. If there's where you're headed and that's what God's going to use you for in the ages to come for eternity, don't you have sense enough to handle this little fight you got going on now?!"

In other words, "If you're equipped out here with this future it ought to affect the way you operate and think right now." Just keep reading: [6] But brother goeth to law with brother, and that before the unbelievers.
[7] Now therefore there is utterly a fault among you, because ye go to law one with another. Why do ye not rather take wrong? why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?
[8] Nay, ye do wrong, and defraud, and that your brethren.
[9] Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
[10] Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.
[11] And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

He's saying, "You think lost people can answer things?! What?! Don't you realize who you are?!" Paul doesn't let them off. He doesn't excuse them. He says, "This is a shameful thing among you because of the way you think."

"Why do you not rather take wrong?" Uh-oh. What kind of an attitude would that be? Would it be called grace? Would it be called, '[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:'

Or is it, "Well, I'm not going to let them do that! You know what they did to me?! They're wrong, I'm right!"

Paul says, "Wait a minute, what'd grace teach you? Why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?" In other words, you ever heard the adage, "There's his side, her side and then the truth"? That's always the way it is. Paul says, "You're going to go out there and try and let unsaved people solve these things when God's given you the wisdom in His Word to do it yourself."

That's the context in which he says verse 9. Most of the time we pull verse 9 out without the context. Here's the doctrine: Lost people aren't going to be out there in that kingdom, you are! Be not deceived.

In verse 11, he's saying to think about all those things in verse 9 and 10. Those are lost people. Paul says, "You used to be lost."

You've heard me say over and over, don't get mad at lost people for acting like lost people. That's what lost people do. That's who they are. And if anybody understands that, it ought to be you because you used to be one of them! But you aren't anymore. Here's who you are now.

You're washed. Revelation 1 says we're washed in His blood. We're cleansed from the defilement and the dirt. You're sanctified. That means you've been set apart. You're justified in the name of the Lord Jesus. You've had a complete, radical change in your identity; in who you are. Not what you do but who you are, because who you are is where what you do comes from.

Philippians 1:9: [9] And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment;

Notice he's praying for their love, but that kind of love is not spelled l-u-v; it's not a warm, wonderful feeling for everybody. It's not an emotional, circumstantial-based love because it's going to increase in knowledge.

This is a thinking, knowledge-based love. The idea of loving something is valuing and esteeming it. Paul says, "I'm praying that your ability to value and esteem a thing would grow in knowledge and in judgment." Judgment there is the idea of discernment.

Verse 10: [10] That ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ. You remember that passage in Hebrews 5 where he says, [14] But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.

Verse 10 is saying, "That you may always choose the thing that's of greatest value in life." I can do this or that as far as God's concerned, but they're not all the thing of greater value. Can I do it? Yes, but is it the thing that has the best long-term interest for myself and others? What's the long-term benefit, the benefit in "the ages to come," as opposed to just me right now having my way and then getting a "blank" out there.

I need to have the capacity to look at life, look at my choices and discern the thing that's of greater value; approve things that are excellent. "Here's something that's good, but here's something that's better. Here's something that's the best."

Why would you want to be doing that? "That ye may be sincere and without offense." You see, what you do now impacts what happens to you out yonder. He says, "I want you to value and esteem what's going to happen to you out in the future enough that it controls and guides your thinking about what you're doing now."

There's that verse in I Corinthians 10: [31] Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God. Sometime the glory of God comes out yonder because of what you did now and you have to keep that in mind. Making decisions right now in light of who you are in Christ bears on what happens to you in the inheritance and the reward of the inheritance in the ages to come.

Gut issue in all of it

Paul writes in Colossians 2: [9] For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.

For some reason when you listen to preachers talk about that verse, they just go into a dither. Preachers who don’t know what a verse is about and yet they argue about things, says Richard Jordan.

I have to two commentaries on the Book of Ephesians written by seminary professors and they have two pages each on the one part of that verse, telling you about what it is, and neither one of them have any idea what it ought to be. But they go on and on about it; they just can’t shut up.

You know what you do when you don’t know what something is? When I was ordained back in the ’60s, a man on the ordination committee came to me and said, “I want to give you a piece of advice that will never fail you. If somebody asks you a question and you don’t know the answer, say, ‘I don’t know.’ ”

It’s okay to say you don’t know. It’s better to say you don’t know than it is to open your mouth and remove all doubt.

That verse isn’t hard. Who are we? We’re the fulness of Him. There’s the Him. Listen, in Christ all the fulness of the Godhead dwells bodily.

The Father’s put all fulness in His Son. He doesn’t need you and me to complete Him. There’s nothing incomplete about Him. So, the fulness there is not Him. The fulness is the body, the church.

What’s He going to fill up? He’s going to fill up all those positions in the heavenly places and you’re the fulness that He’s going to fill all those places with. How hard is that? That’s exciting.

His goal is to fill the universe with the glory of His Son. That’s the reason for the head-and-body analogy. Because we’re in living union with the head; we share His life, and we’re the vehicle that demonstrates forth who He is.

Now, that’s His goal for us for eternity. Paul wants you to understand that that’s the reality now, too. It isn’t simply in the “ages to come”; it’s in this world also.

Paul’s praying that you and I would have that spirit of wisdom and revelation; that we’d have that demeanor. That working in our inner man this wisdom and revelation, given through Paul to us, is designed to produce in us, and we’d have it now and we’d walk by faith in the reality of who we are in Christ Jesus right now so that Christ could be manifest through us.

(new article tomorrow for certain)

Colossians 1:9 says, "For this cause we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to desire that ye might be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding."

You know what God’s purpose with the Body of Christ is? It’s that man is going to take wisdom, understanding and knowledge out of His creation and harness it and subdue it and develop it so that it manifests the wisdom God put in His creation. You and I are going to do the same thing UP there.

You know what our reigning in the heavens is going to be? It’s not going to be telling those angels to go do that and those other angels go do that: "You do this because I said so."

In Mark 10, when two of Jesus Christ’s disciples come and say, "We want to sit on each side of you in the kingdom," He responds, "You guys don’t understand; you’re thinking like a bunch of elitist Gentiles. You think government is just telling people what to do. Government is to administer my heaven. It’s to administer my business.

“It’s to take the wisdom, understanding and knowledge that I have and go out there and figure out how to apply it to ever-increasingly new situations so you don’t need to run to the index every time; you’ve got some discernment to be able to deal with it based upon understanding my will, and hence you can manifest my thinking, my mind, my life."

Whoa! Do you grasp why wisdom, understanding and knowledge is really the gut issue in all of it?! Ephesians 2:7 says, "That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.”

*****

Quote to consider: "Relationship is a process of self-revelation, and, without knowing oneself, the ways of one's own mind and heart, merely to establish an outward order, a system, a cunning formula, has very little meaning. What is important is to understand oneself in relationship with another. Then relationship becomes not a process of isolation, but a movement in which you discover your own motives, your own thoughts, your own pursuits; and that very discovery is the beginning of liberation, the beginning of transformation."

Paul writes in Romans 12, [1] I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
[2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.
[3] For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. 

Witchcrafts behind militaristic world carnage

Isaiah 47: [10] For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.

[11] Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.
[12] Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail.

You know what an enchantment is--you have these code words to try to release power. You have the chants and all that stuff people do. They're going to use these sorceries and stuff, casting spells to try to gain an upper hand, explains Richard Jordan.

[13] Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee.

They have the word of prophecy and are going to tell the future and they're going to use what look like signs and wonders and so forth to do these things and it's going to deceive the nations.

*****

Nahum is a book of judgment and chapter 3 is sort of walking it out the door. This is the final judgment of God against Nineveh, which is the stronghold of the Antichrist and the book's looking to the time in the last days, especially at the time of the Second Advent.

Verse 1: [1] Woe to the bloody city! it is all full of lies and robbery; the prey departeth not;

He's describing a battle going on here. He's talking about the violence that makes the city of Nineveh the capital of bloodshed.

In verses 2-3 He literally describes the carnage of the battlefield: [2] The noise of a whip, and the noise of the rattling of the wheels, and of the pransing horses, and of the jumping chariots.

[3] The horseman lifteth up both the bright sword and the glittering spear: and there is a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; and there is none end of their corpses; they stumble upon their corpses:

This is a description of a live, contemporary military engagement. It's not talking about some cemetery; this is the battle going on right then and the city's just being wiped out.

Here's what's behind the military carnage: [4] Because of the multitude of the whoredoms of the wellfavoured harlot, the mistress of witchcrafts, that selleth nations through her whoredoms, and families through her witchcrafts.

That's a description of the power, the spiritual activity that lies behind that militaristic world dominion domination kind of conquest that Nineveh represents. The Antichrist has sought to be the ruler of the world.

There are two forces that propel that militaristic world dominion idea and these two forces don't just compel the Antichrist; he's harnessing what's there in life all along.

If you went around today and tried to explain what it is that causes nations to rise against nations and causes the militaristic dominion over nations, there's two reasons . . .

In verse 1, he's talking about just that lust for wealth: "You've got something I want; I'm going to come and rob you and I'm willing to shed blood to get it."

In 3:16, talking again about Nineveh as it's being destroyed, [16] Thou hast multiplied thy merchants above the stars of heaven: the cankerworm spoileth, and flieth away.

That's like that thing in Ezekiel 28 about Satan's merchandise and how he's out selling his ideas.

They're pillaging, robbing and it's that greed; that lust for wealth and gaining things that other people have. That's why Jesus warned His apostles, "Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth."

The second thing is down in Nahum 3:4 and it's more sinister. You understand the greed issue, the human nature kind of thing, but Satan uses that human nature to accomplish his purposes

That verse is not talking about a house of ill-repute; that's talking about that thing in Revelation 17:

[5] And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

[6] And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

It's talking about that satanic-inspired religious dominion and you remember that city in Revelation is the city that rules over the kings of the earth and it's made the kings of the earth drunk with the wine of her fornication.

She's literally intoxicated them and put a spirit within them that causes them to fall in line with the Adversary's goal of making the Antichrist the head ruler of the nations, and no matter what kind of bloodshed it takes to do it, they'll do it.

In Nahum 2, back in verse 11, the thing about those three lions there: [11] Where is the dwelling of the lions, and the feedingplace of the young lions, where the lion, even the old lion, walked, and the lion's whelp, and none made them afraid?

I've tried to say to you Egypt, Babylon and Assyria are associated together and the issue about the Antichrist being an Assyrian, the terminology goes all the way back to Genesis 11 and the idolatry with Nimrod. That's that spiritual power.

The Egyptian, the Pharoah in Isaiah 14, Babylon is called Assyria. In Isaiah 52, Pharoah is said to be the Assyrian running them. So, there's a spiritual power behind the political manifestation.

You'll see that city in Isaiah 47: [1] Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.

[2] Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.
[3] Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.

You have the virgin daughter of Babylon, which would be Revelation 17. Here's the virgin. In that religion when you worship the queen of heaven she's the virgin, the Madonna. This city, in verse 5: [5] Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.

So, she's 'Our Lady,' she's the queen of heaven, she's the virgin. All of those terms have to do with the religious system called Baal worship.

Heart attitude

Philippians 3:3: [3] For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

We rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. We’re not looking to ourselves to make us acceptable before God. Our capacity of what we do aren’t the issue. Our resources are who God has made us in Him.

If you know something about Christian history in Africa over the centuries, Africa has been the stage of some of the greatest demonstrations of that verse in Philippians.

There’s a group of people, they came from Europe, called the Moravians. They're supposed to be the first missionaries from the ones recorded.

They came from central Europe to America, up in Pennsylvania in the north up there to reach the American Indians.

They had reached into the African continent. It was Africans who had been converted to Christ through the ministry of the Moravians, preaching the gospel just like we preach it, who . . .

Most of the people who captured Africans to sell them into slavery to the western slave traders, the large group of people who captured them were Muslims.

When the Islamic captors were carrying them away, just going in and Pell Mell capturing these people trying to rid areas that were not Islamic, the Moravians would go in there . . .

They actually had groups of them that sold themselves into slavery to the Western slave traders for the purpose of carrying the gospel to the slaves who were being carried away from the shores of Africa.

If you know anything about, especially the slaves who came to the North American continent, they came, many of them, with faith in Christ that largely came about because of the African Moravian Believers who were so concerned that their fellow Africans being carried away into God only knew where (they didn’t) would have a gospel witness.

You know what that is? That’s not having any confidence in the flesh, but that’s rejoicing in Christ Jesus and worshipping God in the Spirit, seeing it demonstrated in the details of life.

Beware of anything that would try and draw your attention away from Jesus Christ and just be who God has made you in Christ. That’s the only place you’re going to have safety, and it’s the only place you’re going to have usefulness in your life.

(new article tomorrow)

“There’s a principle,” Jordan says in an old Grace School of the Bible VCR tape. “Old man Bob Jones (1883-1968) used to say, ‘Duties never conflict.’ And you need to write that down upon the impress of the doorway of your mind and never forget it. It will get you through some real questionable situations.

“There’s another one the old man (an Alabama-born evangelist and pioneer religious broadcaster who founded Bob Jones University) used to say and these two pieces of advice have meant more to me through the years than almost anything and that’s, ‘The greatest ability is dependability.’ That will help you get through some real tough spots of self-doubt.

“If you have the heart attitude and be what God’s given you to be--a member of the Body of Christ functioning in that way wherever you are--you’ll find He’ll open doors and begin to move you around when He’s ready to. Doors will open and you’ll go.

“Paul writes in II Corinthians 7:1, ‘Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.’

“God’s will is that you be clean. Holiness, not a holy mess. God expects you to strive for perfect holiness in the fear of God.

“The will of God is not so much to worry about where you are as much as it is He wants you to BE where you are, living a sinless life. Your attitudes first, then your actions.

*****

“Romans 1:11 says, ‘For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established.’

“This is why Paul wants to go to them. Paul’s got a big heart. He’s just an affectionate, loving fellow. He loved them. He never saw them before but he loved them.

“That verse compares with Romans 16:25: ‘Now to him that is of power to stablish you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began.’

“The issue in Paul’s mind is, ‘I want to get down there and I want you people to be established.’ He says in I Thessalonians 3:10 that he’s ‘night and day praying exceedingly that we might see your face, and might perfect that which is lacking in your faith?’

“The issue in Paul’s mind is first and foremost, always and ever, maturity. Grow up.

“The spiritual gift he wants to give them is doctrine. That word ‘stablish’ means to be firmly grounded so that you can stand unshakably. Be grounded, stabilized, balanced-out so you stand. You’re not tossed to and fro.

“Verse 12 says, ‘And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you.’

“You’ll always find that the teacher is as richly blessed as the pupil when you teach the Word and that’s what he’s saying there. Sometimes he sends a letter to do the job and sometimes he sends a man, like in I Thessalonians 3, he sent Timothy to establish the Thessalonians because he couldn’t come. The job is always to see the people get stabilized in your ministry.

*****

“Romans 1:13-15 says, [13] Now I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that oftentimes I purposed to come unto you, (but was let hitherto,) that I might have some fruit among you also, even as among other Gentiles.
[14] I am debtor both to the Greeks, and to the Barbarians; both to the wise, and to the unwise.
[15] So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the gospel to you that are at Rome also.

“When he talks about Greeks and Barbarians, that’s the way the Greeks divided up the world. The Greeks, when they looked at the world, said, ‘There’s the wise Greeks and the unwise Barbarians.'

“The word ‘barbarian’ means basically ‘uneducated guy.’ It’s a reference to somebody who can’t speak Greek, in its meaning at THAT time and not today.

*****

“Regarding verse 14, I was just in a meeting where this guy wanted to advertise his bible school out on the West Coast and he gets up and says, ‘If you can’t speak Greek, you got no business teaching and preaching the Word of God.’

“I asked him, ‘When you teach and preach the Bible, do you do it in Greek?’ He said, ‘No, I teach and preach in English.’ I reminded him ‘that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.’

“I said, ‘How come you can privately interpret what the passage says and give it to me and I’m supposed to trust you and I can’t trust the 47 translators that did my Bible here? How come you know so much more than they do?’

“All of a sudden it got to wet to plow. You see, all of a sudden you got the old thing, ‘You got to have the Greek to understand God’s Word and have it really unfolded to you.’ Do you know Greek? Well, I don’t, so where do I have to go to get it?

“What Paul’s talking about in verse 14 doesn’t has nothing to do with speaking Greek today. I mean, in the world at that time there were the cultured, educated people who were the Greeks and the philosophers and all. The Greeks sort of looked down on everybody else in a hoity-toity kind of way. It was, ‘Either you’re one of us or you’re one of them.’

“And Paul says, ‘I’m bound to preach to the Greeks AND the barbarians.' That’s everybody, whether they’re the 'in-society' and the scholars union or whether they’re the outcasts and dummies on the streets.

*****

“Paul says, ‘I am ready, Rome.’ He’s ready to go. No hesitation in Paul about going and preaching. And he doesn’t miss a chance.

“Notice he says, ‘I am debtor.’ In verse 15, he says, ‘I am ready.’ In verse 16, he says, ‘I am not ashamed.’ That’s a good sermon outline.

“Acts 21:13 says, ‘Then Paul answered, What mean ye to weep and to break mine heart? for I am ready not to be bound only, but also to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’  

“He says, ‘I mean, what are you trying to do, break my heart? ‘For I am ready not to be bound.’

“Brother, that’s a man that’s ready, you know that? He meant it when he said that. And he never missed a chance.

“Come over to II Timothy 4:6 and notice his attitude right at the end: ‘But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.
[6] For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
[7] I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.’

“You see, that man could look at his life and at any time say, ‘I’m ready.’ ‘I’m ready to go, take advantage of the opportunities that come; I’m ready to meet the Lord.’

“Now, THAT'S the way to live your life, ladies and gentlemen, IF you’re going to LIVE it. That’s cocked and ready all the time. Rain or shine, hot or cold, whatever the situation.

“You are to be ready to do whatever God put you wherever you are to do, no matter what the cost, with a heart of love, but do it! See, do it!”

'Thrills the joy chords within' . . .

(here's a short piece since I'm now running out of time and will have a longer article tomorrow. As I've reported, I finally got this flu bug, in which Ohio is said to lead the nation in cases, and boy, does it zap you of energy. I actually had a co-worker tell me today of several people at my job who've had relapses. Today, we had temps around 60 and the high tomorrow is only predicted to be 35 with temps dropping to the teens in the evening!)

In 1915, Harry Dixon Loes listened to Paul Rader give a Sunday morning sermon at Moody in Chicago entitled “All that I want is in Jesus.” He was so inspired he sat down after the service and wrote the lyrics to the classic song, "All Things in Jesus”:

Friends all around me are trying to find
What the heart yearns for, by sin undermined;
I have the secret, I know where tis found:
Only true pleasures in Jesus abound.

All that I want is in Jesus.
He satisfies, joy He supplies;
Life would be worthless without Him;
All things in Jesus I find.

Some carry burdens whose weight has for years
Crushed them with sorrow and blinded with tears.
Yet One stands ready to help them just now,
If they will humbly in penitence bow.

Refrain

No other name thrills the joy chords within,
And through none else is remission of sin.
He knows the pain of the heart sorely tried.
Both need and want will by Him be supplied.

Refrain

Jesus is all this poor world needs today.
Blindly they strive, for sin darkens their way.
O to draw back the grim curtains of night,
One glimpse of Jesus and all will be bright!

*****

Paul begins Philippians 3: [1] Finally, my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you, to me indeed is not grievous, but for you it is safe.

[2] Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision.
[3] For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

When he talks about the concision, he’s talking about these dogs, these evil workers who only focus on what they can do in the flesh, but we’re verse 3, explains Richard Jordan.

We have this identity in Jesus Christ that produces a spiritual reality in life because of our identification with Him. We’re one with Him and we’ve been cut off from what we do. If we’re going to glory, we’re going to glory in Him.

I Corinthians 1: [30] But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
[31] That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Continue in prayer: 'Keep on keepin' on'

Prayer is that divinely appointed means of experiencing an intimate, personal relationship with a heavenly Father who loves you. It’s participating in His revealed plan in His Word to make His love known to a lost world through His people.

I Thessalonians 5:17: [17] Pray without ceasing.

Prayer is you talk to God about every aspect . . . you talk to God about all the things that on your heart. That’s why you pray about EVERYTHING, explains Richard Jordan.

Every detail of your life is brought into the consciousness of it being lived in the presence of God, and you bring it under the authority of God’s Word, under the lordship of Jesus Christ.

You do it by looking at the details of your life and saying, “Lord, here’s what’s going on in my life and here’s how I think about it. Lord, what does your Word say about it; how does your Word apply . . . ?”

Prayer literally becomes the breath of your inner man and it becomes the catalyst; it becomes the thing that catalyzes taking the truth of God’s Word in my experience and putting them together and making it my life. It’s a wonderful thing.

Colossians 4:2: [2] Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;

When Paul says “continue in prayer,” what’s he’s talking about is CONTINUE in this intimate personal communion with a heavenly Father who loves you and demonstrated it completely and fully and established it forever in Christ, and wants more than anything that fellowship with you.

If God had wanted perfection, He would have stayed home. If He wanted you to be perfect, He knew you couldn’t and wouldn’t. That’s why He MAKES you perfect in His Son.

What He wants is your trust. He wants you to trust Him. He wants you to enter Him into your life in all of its details. Not having little areas over there that you’re going to keep for yourself. Not like that little hidey hole in the bottom desk drawer of life, but to take His life, His thinking and all of your life . . .

How do you do that? You simply contemplate every detail of your life in light of what His Word says. What great motivation that is! You say, “Here’s something going on in my life I have no idea what God’s Word has to say about it.” If you don’t know something, go look for it.

I’m interested in the Word because I want to know what God says about this thing in my life and I want to be able to get it myself. That’s what right division is all about. It has to do with the pursuit of God’s Word and the life of God in our life; of Christ as our life.

Paul says, “Continue in that.” When you continue in something, you endure in it, you persevere in it. You persist in it; you hold on to it and you don’t let it go. We used to say, “Keep on keepin’ on.”

All of your conscious thinking should be lived in a communion with God; the consciousness of His presence in your life. One of the things you do is train yourself not to talk to yourself. You talk to the ever-present Creator of the universe and you don’t wonder, “What’s God over there thinking about me?”

You know, when you go in a room, you’re real self-conscious. You’re thinking about what everybody else is thinking about you. Well, what are they thinking about? They’re thinking about what everybody else is thinking about them. They aren’t thinking about you; they’re thinking about themselves. That’s exactly what you’re doing!

But when you become friends with somebody, and you become intimate with them, and you get to know them, all of a sudden you’re not worried about what they’re thinking about you.

You want to talk to them and share yourself with them, and them with you, and welcome them into your heart. That’s what you’re to continue in; that’s what “continue in prayer” is. That’s why it’s the first thing you do.

The local assembly is to be a group of people in whom Christ is their life and that’s how He IS your life. That’s how you experience that.

Soon enough, it becomes just that consciousness, and all of your self-talk becomes not talk to YOU, but talk to Him. That’s how you activate the doctrine that’s in your heart, because the Holy Spirit takes that doctrine in your heart—your conscience takes it and the talk you’re doing and it will say “nah,” and it reproves and corrects and instructs in righteousness, and that’s called growth.

Paul says, “Not only continue in it but watch in the same.” That’s means be vigilant. You’re being alert, because Paul understood—God knows that there are always things to take your eye off the ball.

There are constantly things in your life to divert you away from that intimate fellowship that is your privilege with God the Father through Christ Jesus. Troubles come. Maybe it’s sickness. Maybe it’s just things: Heartaches, financial reversals, assaults from others, slander that comes your way. Misunderstandings, anxiety about something you’re trying to resolve.

All kinds of things that can come to ROB you of continuing, praying without ceasing, by getting your mind off, “Lord what are we doing here, and what will we do . . .” and onto self.

So Paul says, “Watch in the same with thanksgiving.” In Colossians, Thanksgiving is referred to more than in any other of Paul’s epistles. It’s a recurring theme.

Thanksgiving, that’s grace thinking. Thanksgiving is what keeps you awake and alert; it’s what keeps you watching. It’s what keeps you alert in your spiritual life.

Unique aspects of Tri-unity access

(I've been out of commission with a case of the flu that's been going around. The lingering exhaustion is letting up now and I even think I will be able to go to work tomorrow--I will post a new article then.)

Muslims believe the trinity of Christianity is a form of polytheism and, according to a translation of the Koran (5:75): “They do blaspheme who say God is the Christ the son of Mary. But said: O children of Israel. Worship God, my Lord and your Lord. Whoever joins other god with God? God will forbid him the Garden, and the fire will be his abode. There will be no one to help. They do blaspheme who say God is one of three in a trinity; for there is no god except One God. If they desist not from their word (of blasphemy) verily a grievous penalty will befall the blasphemers among them.”

In a Sunday sermon recently, Jordan recalled talking to some Muslims about how the Koran has mistakes in it and their adamant response was, “Oh, no, no.”

He came back with, “Yeah, it does. It says Christians believe in three gods and anybody who knows anything about Christianity knows we don’t believe in three gods.”

He went on to explain, “Mohammed (author of the Koran) was raised around some Christians who didn’t have a very good view of the trinity. They basically taught there were three gods. But their view of Christianity has never been what Christians have believed and certainly not what the Bible teaches.”

*****

Jordan continued, “I’ve talked to you many times about why the ‘Tri-Unity’of God is such a critical issue to understand, and it’s not that creation validates God, but that creation reflects God and His nature. That one God in the Bible is defined in three people.

“Paul tells us in Ephesians 2:18 that ‘through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father,’ and that’s the issue of the trinity. The trinity is all through the Book of Ephesians. The word ‘trinity,’ though, is not a Bible word; it’s a term of theology coined by Tertullian back in the 2^nd century.

“He took a Latin word ‘tres,’ which means three, and ‘unis,’ which means one, and invented the word ‘triunus,’ which we have as trinity when you Anglicize it. The word means ‘three-in-one’ or ‘the One that is three.’

“The Bible word Paul uses is the word ‘godhead.’ Paul uses that word three times (Romans 1, Acts 17 and Colossians 2).

“In theology, they make something about the trinity harder than it needs to be. There’s only one God. ‘Here O Israel thy Lord thy God is one God.’ In Ephesians 4, Paul says ‘there’s one God and Father.’

“But that one God in the Bible turns out to exist in three people who are one in essence, one in being.

*****

“Look around this room. There’s one humanity here today. God ‘hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth.’

“But look at all the different kind of people. There’s all kind of what we call ethnic groups and we have a whole assortment right here in this room this morning.

“One of the fascinating things when we moved from Alabama to Chicago was to learn about the real different characteristics that different ethnic groups have. It’s still is a fascination to me that the cultures and the different thinking processes--literally the way people think is controlled by your culture.

“Look at all the different individuals here. Everybody’s a separate individual and we’re separate kinds of individuals in the sense of our ethnic identity, race, male and female, etc. If you can have one humanity with 200 different individuals in one room, you can have one godhead; one essence of deity with three people in it.

*****

“John 1:14 is a very important reality to think about when thinking about who God is: ‘And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.’

“You see that word ‘Word’ with a capital W? The all-caps ‘WORD’ is the name for the Lord Jesus Christ, so as the second member of the godhead, one of His names is ‘the Word.’ He’s the one who’s going to be the speaker. He’s going to be the manifest person of the godhead. He’s the one who reveals God.

“Verse 18 says, ‘No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.’

“You can’t see God in your human essence, but the Lord Jesus Christ has declared Him. Well, you declare things with a word. If you want to know who the God, the Creator, of the universe is, you look at the revelation of God in the person of Christ.

*****

“John 1 says, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God.’

“You couldn’t be any clearer than that. Here’s the Word, here’s God the Father, and there are two distinct people. ‘And the Word was God.’ The Word, God the Son, was as equally God as the Father was. They’re one in one sense, that is in their deity, but they’re distinct in another sense in that there are two people.

“That’s easy to see in the Scripture. People say, ‘Well, it’s hard to understand.’ It’s not that hard to fathom, frankly. If you can fathom the fact that there’s all these different individuals in this room and yet we’re one, that makes sense to me.

“When the godhead manifests itself, you see three members of the godhead manifested. Matthew 3:16-17 says, 16] And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him:
[17] And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.’

“Sometime people say, ‘Well, this doesn’t occur in the Old Testament. Look at Isaiah 48:16: ‘Come ye near unto me, hear ye this; I have not spoken in secret from the beginning; from the time that it was, there am I: and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.’

“The ‘me’ who’s talking, if you go back to verse 12, Revelation identifies the first and the last as Jesus Christ. So here’s the second person of the godhead talking before He became a man.

“You understand Jesus didn’t come into existence when He was conceived in the womb of Mary. You didn’t exist before your mother and dad conceived you. No stork delivered you. You weren’t up there in some incubating nursery in heaven waiting to find a delivery date and address. You didn’t exist.

“That’s good old pagan Mormon doctrine, but it’s not Bible. You came into existence when you were conceived. Jesus Christ already existed. In fact, ‘He made everything that was made and without Him was not anything made that was made.’ He’s God.

“So, He’s going to talk to you in verse 16: ‘Come ye unto me (God the Son) hear this, I (Jesus Christ) have not spoken from the time . . . and now the Lord GOD, and his Spirit, hath sent me.’

“Who is the Lord God and His Spirit? That’s God the Father and God the Spirit. You can do this repeatedly in the Old Testament, but those three members of the godhead, that’s why back in Genesis it says, ‘Let US create man.’ From the very beginning in the Bible, there have been three members of the godhead.

*****

“All three members of the godhead in Ephesians are seen in action, working the counsel of God. They’re all for you. That’s why in chapter 2:18, when you come there, and he says, ‘For through him, we both have access by one Spirit,’ it’s not a shock.

“You’ll see it on and on through the Book of Ephesians. The reason that this is an issue is because the issue is life and the issue is, ‘What kind of life did God give His creation to live?’ And if you want to know what kind of life (‘He breathed into man the breath of life and man became a living soul’), that life came from the godhead.

“So what kind of life does God live? If you look at Colossians 1, notice what he says about what the Father thinks. Colossians 1:18-19 says, 18] And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
[19] For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell.

“Why should Jesus Christ have preeminence in all things? ‘For it pleased the Father that in him should all fullness dwell.’ It pleases God the Father that His Son had the preeminence in everything. You know who the Father lives to exalt and make No. 1? His Son.

“Flip back one book to Philippians 2:11: ‘And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’

“When you exalt the Son, he says, ‘Hey, I’m not doing this! This is the work and the words the Father gave me!’

“So when you try to exalt the Son, you know who you really exalted? The Father. When you look at the Father, He says, ‘Exalt my Son.’ The Son says, ‘Hey, when you exalted me you’re really exalting the Father.’

*****

“John 16:13 says, ‘Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come.’

“Who’s the Holy Spirit going to glorify when He comes? If the Spirit of God is working in you, is He going to talk about Himself? No, He’s going to talk about who? The Lord Jesus Christ. Every member of the godhead lives to exalt the other members of the godhead. Nobody in the godhead lives for themselves; they all live spontaneously, intimately, immediately, consistently for the other members of the godhead.

“The life that God gave His creation was a life that was designed to live like He lives life. That’s why sin in its most basic form is not living for the good of others, for the gratification of others, for the exaltation of others, for the pleasure of others. It’s living for yourself.

“I’ve said for 40 years, the middle letter of the word sin is ‘I.’ You want to know your problem? Start there, because that’s what makes your life lived exactly the opposite of the way God designed your life to be lived.

*****

“There’s one little word in Ephesians 2:18 that’s critical because all the godhead is working for you. It’s through Christ, it’s by His Spirit, it’s under the Father, but what you’re getting in the verse is that little word ‘access.’

“I can’t not help but want to massage that word into your thinking. The idea with access is the concept of a personal introduction, and it’s as though it was through Christ, based on what Jesus Christ has done, that the Holy Spirit literally takes the Believer by the hand and leads you into the presence of the Father and introduces you to the Father and informs you about the Father and makes the Father’s will real to you.

“It’s saying, ‘Here, let me take you by the hand and walk you in and introduce you to Him.’ You know one of the biggest hurdles with anything in life is to get over that hurdle of being introduced so that you now have a personal relationship.

“The function of the Holy Spirit is to do that. He says it’s ‘through Christ.’ That word ‘access’ is used three times by Paul. The first one emphasizes the ‘through Him.’

“Ephesians 3:12 says, ‘In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.’ I want you to notice something about that verse. In verse 9, Paul says his goal in the ministry is to ‘make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery.’ That doesn’t mean just make people see in the sense of making people understand the distinctive ministry of Paul. He wants you to see the fellowship that the mystery produces.

“What is that? Verse 6 says, ‘That the Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel.’ There’s this wonderful cosmic plan that God has for His Son. We’ve been studying it all through Ephesians. It’s bigger than just your redemption. It’s bigger that just your regeneration. It’s bigger that just your life this afternoon.

“When you get the picture that you’re a part of something GIGANTIC, something BIG that God’s doing, all focused in His Son, all of a sudden it’s, ‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face.’ And what? ‘The things of this world grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.’

“Romans 5:2 says, ‘By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.’ How does the Spirit give you access? It’s by faith. How do you get into personal contact with it? How do you get this personal introduction to it where it becomes real in your life and your experience? Not just in head knowledge, but ‘It’s mine!’? By faith.

*****

“What is faith? ‘Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.’ Who wrote the Word of God? See, when you trust God’s word, who are you really trusting? You’re trusting the Spirit of God. Jesus said, ‘The words that I speak unto you they are Spirit and they are life.’

“Your flesh profits nothing. And as your faith, resting in an understanding of God’s Word to you . . . that’s why the right division is important, but it’s your faith depending on what God says is true that allows that truth to work, to become internalized energy in your life, to renew your thinking processes and allow your life—the definition of life is the ability to relate to your circumstances.

“You know what life is? This is it! Look around you! For His life, HIS ability to relate to your circumstances to become YOUR ability to relate to your circumstances. How’s that work? That’s the job of the Spirit. The way you activate that is by faith.”