Power of three

If God existed in only one person then He would be dependent on some created being in order to have a relationship. But God can’t be incomplete, and He can’t be dependent on His creation.

“Does God need something from man or a created being? You know why that matters? If God existed in only one person, there would be no one for Him to love in the absence of His creation.

“If there’s only one person in the godhead, is there anyone else for God to glorify or have fellowship with?

“What happened in eternity past is the three persons of the godhead (the scriptural word for trinity is godhead) got together and decided what they were going to accomplish throughout time. They decided they were going to use time to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.

“The reason the three persons of the godhead exist is to glorify one another. John 17:1: [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:

"There’s something very shallow about glorifying yourself, but there’s nothing shallow at all about glorifying another person.

*****

“There’s a fundamental order to the universe making three the strongest shape. Exodus 3:13: [13] And Moses said unto God, Behold, when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say unto them?

[14] And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

I John 5:7-8: [7] For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

[8] And there are three that bear witness in earth, the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three agree in one.

"The idea is there are three that testify. So there are three that bear record in heaven—the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.

“Apparently there’s a divine design to the universe that reflects the character of God Himself.

“The godhead has to exist with one God in three persons for God to be able to bear fully accurate testimony of Himself without being dependent on anything else in the universe. This allows God to be complete by Himself.

“Like I’m saying, God didn’t need us to give Himself someone to love. What our role is we have the privilege, honor and the incredible grace of God to participate in the love that already existed between the three members of the godhead before the world began.

*****

“Guess how many times the word godhead appears in Scripture? Three. Isn’t that interesting? You’d almost think there was a design intelligence that inspired it and put it that way. If you believe coincidences like that are just coincidences, my personal opinion is you’re naïve.

“They’re not coincidences. They’re there because in the divine intelligence of God that’s the way it’s been designed.

“I would suggest to you that if all you believed were those three verses and nothing else, it would RULE OUT all the other religions of the world as to the godhead.

“Acts 17:29 says, ‘Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device.’

“What that verse tells you is the godhead is fundamentally different from the dumb gods of this world that are carved, made by human hands. It tells you how to think about the molten calf in Exodus, for example.

*****

“Romans 1:20 says, ‘For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.’

“Verse 19 is a problem for the lost man. It says, ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.’

“What they learn is God has power. If God didn’t have any power, but He had all sorts of wrath against sin, no one would care. The verse indicates the godhead is known to man.

“What Romans 19’s saying is that ‘being understood by the things that are made’ included God’s eternal power in the godhead.”

*****

The rule of three is the most important rule in writing. Why? Because it affects everything from sentence structure to plot. And more importantly, it’s become an intrinsic communication pattern for people around the world.

The rule of three is a storytelling principle that suggests people better understand concepts, situations, and ideas in groups of three. Over time, the rule has been confirmed by anthropological experts as an archetypal principle that works on three levels: sentences, situations, and stories.

No working it up or praying it down

Paul’s epistles constantly emphasize not only the apostle’s use of the first person nouns, ‘I,’ ‘me’ and ‘my,’ but the unique character of his apostleship and message. Ignore this fact and be in utter confusion; accept it and thousands of seeming contradictions throughout Scripture disappear.

In addressing the perilous times of the “last days,” Paul warns about those who are “ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."

“There’s this whole system of guilt that drives and runs an uncertainty that’s pushing—ever learning, always looking for answers but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth," explains Richard Jordan.

"Why? Because they’re looking at the form and not the reality. They’re looking at the performance-based acceptance program—legalism, the law—as opposed to an acceptance God gives you in Christ.

“ . . . Acceptance not because of who you think you are and what you can do because you focus on yourself, but because of who Christ is and what God has done in Him, and who God has made you in Him.

“I Corinthians 1:30 is such a wonderful verse on redemption. Paul writes, ‘But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.’

“I don’t know about you, but in my life on a regular basis, day in and day out, I have to look to the Lord and say, ‘I need wisdom. I need to know how to deal with this.’

“I know what pressure is and I know what it is to sit with something and not know what to do. So I go down into my study and sit in my chair and I say, ‘Lord, I’m going to start with Romans chapter one and read all the way through to the end of Philemon; I know the answer is in there somewhere.’

*****

“I was watching a segment of Dr. Phil asking a guest, ‘What are you proud of?’ and the guy told him about the kids he teaches at school. Phil said, ‘No, I mean what are you proud of about YOU?’ The man didn’t have an answer.

"Dr. Phil said, ‘Well, we’re going to give you some things to be proud of about you.’ I thought, ‘You know, that teacher had the right attitude to start with.’ What do you have to go strutting around being proud about yourself?

“People say, ‘Shouldn’t I have a good self-image?’ You? REALLY?! Let’s put you on Jay Leno because you could be good on the comedy circuit. You don’t need a good self-image; you need a proper self-image.

“You need to understand who God’s made you in Christ. Outside of Jesus Christ, there isn’t anything good that’s going to come. That’s the problem. Men become lovers of themselves.

*****

“When you understand the righteousness God's given you in His Son, do you realize what that does as you see your failures? Instead of being condemned by the goofs in your life, and shocked by them, overdrawn by them, you say, ‘This a waste of time in my life because that’s not who I am! Why am I wasting my life with this?! That’s what Christ died to put away!’

“You begin to deal with it; I begin to look at it. I begin to objectively evaluate it. I begin to say, ‘That doesn’t belong in my life and I need to put it off by putting ON Christ—His attitudes, His actions.’

“I find I need to preach the gospel to me more than anyone I know. Sanctification is to have purpose and meaning in life. Redemption is to have liberty and freedom. That’s what God gives me in His Son and that’s a reality of who I am.

“These people (in II Timothy 3) are ever learning and never able to come to know that. Why? Because they’re focusing on what they’re doing and what others are doing, rather than who God’s made them in Christ. That’s the essence of grace—what God has accomplished for you through the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary.

“That truth enters into every aspect of your life—where you lived this past day and where you’re going to live in the week ahead. It’s designed to live there in those details of your life. It’s designed to live in you and out through you for others to catch the aroma of.

*****

“II Timothy 3 represents Paul’s look into the future. What should we expect the future to be like? Paul says ‘perilous times’ are ahead. Verse 2 says people will be ‘lovers of their own selves.’ The longer God’s grace is extended, the more the hearts of men will produce these perilous times. More and more, self is going to be the measure of everything.

“Verse 5 says they have ‘a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof.’ Now what’s that talking about? That isn’t talking about the world out there. Paul’s talking about the way it will be in the church as the world goes on. Self begins to take over. ‘Form of godliness’ is talking about the church—it’s that external religious performance—as a form.

“It’s form, or external religious performance, denying the power of the internal reality. Where’s the power of God? It’s in the gospel given by Paul; it’s in the Crosswork of Christ. It’s not out there in politics; it’s not in the pocketbook.

“It’s my faith resting in the reality of who God has made me through the Crosswork of Jesus Christ—when Jesus Christ died to put away all my sins; put away everything that’s wrong with me and has dealt with it, and there’s a finality to it. Then there’s the reality of His resurrection life.

“It’s what God’s already done for me. I don’t have to go try and find it. I don’t have to seek it. I don’t have to work it up or pray it down. I don’t have to go rededicate my life once a year. That’s who I am. I just need to relax and live in the reality of who God says I am wherever I find myself day in, day out.

“Paul says in that same verse, ‘from such turn away.’ That’s saying, ‘Don’t be a part of that kind of system; that kind of activity.’

“Verse 6 says, ‘For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts.’

“He’s not picking on silly women and he’s not saying all women are silly. What he’s talking about is, ‘You’re not using your mind, silly!’ You’re being captivated by the form, by the outward things; it’s the old wives tales kind of thing.

*****

“Paul says in Romans 7 that when he tries to do good works in the energy of that flesh, God won’t take it. God says all of our own righteousness is like ‘filthy rags.’ The moral law of God keeps pointing out that there isn’t any ability in this flesh of ours to stop sin or to produce works God will accept.

“When you get saved, you’re spiritually circumcised and your soul and your body are cut loose; you’re set free. Now your soul’s no longer the slave of sin. You’re crucified with Christ and your body is reckoned dead.

“In Galatians 5: 16-18, Paul advises Believers, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.”

“I Corinthians 15:56 tells us, ‘The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.’ Paul writes in Romans 7:25, ‘So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.’

“Where does the sin get its strength? It’s the law that gives sin its strength. 

Paul argues in Galatians 3:3, ‘Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?’

“Nobody thinks they’re going to be perfected by doing evil things, but the flesh can do some GOOD things that give a person the idea they’re going to be perfected by the good things they do.

“You know what Paul said about his religion and all the good things he could produce walking in the flesh, keeping himself under the law? He said it’s just dung—horse manure. You see, he lost all his confidence in what he could do on his own.

“Walking in the flesh has to do with a motivating factor that says you do good things in order that you can please God on your own. That’s the law principle.

“The motivating factor when you walk in the Spirit is recognition of your position in Christ and wanting to walk consistent with that position, and that’s grace. You walk under the grace principle. It’s about getting in line with what God’s doing today in the world and in your life, not in what YOU are trying to do.

“As Paul puts it in Romans 8:1, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’

“Victory is obtained by objectively being occupied with who God’s made you in Christ. ‘With the mind, I shall walk with God.’ ” 

Urgent kind of thing, as in 'RUN!'

(travel notes are at bottom of this post)

“Every day of the dispensation of grace is called ‘the last day’ because we don’t have any promise of another day, but there is going to be a day that is THE last day and when the Rapture comes, BOOM! that’s the end of it and the dispensation of grace is over,” says Richard Jordan. “So the closer you get to the Rapture, the stage begins to be set for the last days of prophecy.

“If you’re a Jew in the tribulation period, you know without even batting an eye that you’ve got at least seven more years to go until the Antichrist is revealed, and when he’s revealed and the 70^th week of Daniel begins to tick off, you can begin to count the days because there’s going to be 1,260 days and a break and then 1,260 more days.

“There are going to be 42 months and 42 months, 3½ years and 3 ½ years and then Christ is going to be there. So they have a time schedule to count. We don’t have that.

Jesus informs in Matthew 24:22, [22] And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be shortened.

“When He says the days will be shortened, He’s not talking about making 1,260 into only 1,220. He’s saying, ‘If this tribulation such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be is allowed to run its course, there ain’t gonna be anybody left.’

“So what’s He going to do? He’s going to shorten it; He’s only going to go so far and stop it. He’s going to stop it after 1,260 days. Just like right now He withholdeth that (II Thessalonians 2), He’s going to stop it before it reaches its full end or before the deception is so great nobody would ever be saved. He’s not going to let it go to its conclusion because if it was left to run its natural course the stuff would be so bad everybody would be gone.

Christ's survival instructions in Matthew 24 include, [23] Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there; believe it not.
[24] For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
[25] Behold, I have told you before.

*****

Daniel 9:27 reports about this time in the tribulation, [27] And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

“The reason the Bible says ‘the midst of the week’ is because there’s a specific middle point to it all. Instead of trying to find that one day, you’ll find a period of time. In the midst of the week that abomination of desolation is set up and now the die is cast.

“Now is the time they’re going to have to either decide to take ‘the mark of the beast,’ or not to take it. This is when there will be that division between parents where they’re literally going to have kids turning their parents in and parents turning their kids in.

“There’s going to be this dividing line based upon this and there’s going to be people who say about the Antichrist, ‘He IS the Messiah; he’s the one.’ You’re going to have other people say, ‘No, he’s not the one,’ and that’s why I John talks about how ‘every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.’

“They’re going to say, ‘No, he’s already been here,’ and the others are going to say, ‘No, he hasn’t. Here he is!’ and they’re going to be divided because of him. That thing becomes not just an idea; it becomes the issue they face directly and so Luke 21 says, ‘Then let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it depart out; and let not them that are in the countries enter thereinto.’

“Who are the people who flee into the mountains? People in Judea, not Chicago. Why are they going to flee to the mountains?

“Revelation 12:13-14 says, [13] And when the dragon saw that he was cast unto the earth, he persecuted the woman which brought forth the man child. [14] And to the woman were given two wings of a great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness, into her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent.

“Now, that takes place in the midst of the week. Same time period. They’re going to flee into that wilderness and the word ‘wilderness’ there is the idea of a place that’s not occupied.

“There are places in the Old Testament, in the books of Jeremiah (chapter 15) and Micah (chapter 7), for example, that tell them specifically where to go. And when they get there, they’re going to be nourished.

“They’re literally going to be fed with manna. Has that ever happened before? You think if it’s happened before it might give them some instructions about how it might happen again? That ‘fleeing’ is because in Jerusalem is where the persecution’s going to be. They’re told to get out of there and it’s an urgent kind of thing.

“Watch how Jesus Christ says it in Matthew 24:17: ‘Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house.’

“We don’t have structures like that, but when you go to that part of the world you discover most of the houses have flat roofs with gardens and living areas on the top. If you don’t know that go watch the Jason Bourne adventures and he’s jumping from housetop to housetop. This kind of construction here tells you that you’re talking about something that’s not just generic in its location.

“Christ says in verse 18, ‘Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.’ He’s talking, ‘Listen, when the sound goes up, don’t go home and pack a bag-- RUN!’ It’s that serious. That’s the idea.

“He says, ‘[19] And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days!
[20] But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day.’

“Again, the issue is if you’re ‘great with child’ you’re not really in a hiking mode. If you have to nurse children, that’s going to slow you down, too. Pray that that’s not what happens to you. The issue is the urgency of this. This is something they need to get on with quickly. ‘Get out of town, get there!’

“As verse 21 says, [21] For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. By the way, you notice it doesn’t say THE Great Tribulation? We use that term a lot but the Bible talks about ‘great tribulation.’ "

*****

Here is the continuation from my post on 10/19 entitled “Products of our childhood” and will continue with this tomorrow:

The biggest takeaway from my trip to my hometown of Loudonville, OH on October 17 is that I knew I was really going home--like no other place I've ever lived.

After all, having moved there from Akron at age 10 and not leaving until going away to college at 18, it’s where I really became me--my personality, my convictions, my affinities, my dreams, on and on.

Getting off at the Sunbury exit of I-71N is when the journey home, after a 24-year absence, really started to take hold of me.

Despite all the retail and housing development, I knew old Route 36 from the many, many times I’d traveled between Loudonville and Columbus over the years, most especially after I got my first car (a used Plymouth Horizon hatchback) my junior year at Ohio State and could drive home whenever I wanted.

The first town to grab me was Centerburg, which still has the sign at the village limits to tell you it’s the “Geographical Center of Ohio.” More than a few times I rode my bike all the way to Centerburg before heading back home on a real hilly Route 3. This was soon after I first got serious about cross-country cycling my senior year of high school.

Next up was Mt. Vernon (settled in 1805), “America’s Hometown,” as recognized on its town entry sign. I remember when there was an entry sign letting you know it was the “Home of Paul Lynde,” a comedian (Uncle Arthur from Bewitched and the “center square” on The Hollywood Squares game show) who always portrayed himself as being effeminate. Among many historical buildings in downtown Mt. Vernon is an opera house that is the oldest of its kind in America.

I was near-mesmerized the closer I got to Loudonville and the sentimental emotions washed over me when I saw the little old stone Zion Lutheran church that sits on a hilltop right next to the road near Jelloway, OH, which is 9 miles from Loudonville.

How many times I would ride my bike to this church as my intended destination before turning back home. I would often get off my bike there and sit on the front stoop, drinking water and resting.

The essences of God

(sorry for delay--will have travelogue entry tomorrow for certain)

Because God is a spirit, in order to be qualified to work with Him, you have to connect with Him at that level. The problem with man, descended from Adam, is we’ve been separated from God because of our sin.

“We’re spiritually unqualified and so what the New Covenant does is it brings the spiritual qualification; the spiritual status whereby we can work with God, who is a spirit,” says Richard Jordan. “When you work with Him that’s where it all has to start.

“There’s wonderful things you can study about the essence of God that are fascinating. All of His attributes work together in harmony. There’s two essences that function together to make His integrity. Integrity is His holiness. That’s made up of His righteousness, which is the standard of His integrity and His justice, which is the function of His integrity.

“Righteousness is the perfect rightness of God; His capacity as complete and total perfection in character. His justice is always right—perfect rightness. His justice is the function of His essence that judges people or blesses people.

*****

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

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

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

“Romans 3:25-26 says, [25] Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

[26] To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

“God’s justice had faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, in the fact God could take our sin and impute it onto His Son and that that would be a right thing to do; that would satisfy the righteous standard of God and that He then could take Christ’s righteousness and impute it to us.

“What His justice did was demand that His righteousness be honored and Jesus Christ comes.

“I mean, who would have ever thought to have asked God to do that for you?! That’s that verse in Ephesians 3:20 about, ‘Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.’

“Forget about asking Him; you would have never thought about suggesting that to God! But His omniscience thought about it. His love motivated Him but His justice executed the plan and it’s always through His justice that we contact Him.

*****

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

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

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

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

“He’s got no power against the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. I know somebody says, ‘Well, in Mark 5 he didn’t go right away.’ You got no idea what you’re talking about! That demon didn’t want to leave the land; he didn’t care anything about leaving the guy. He went in the pigs. He might have thought that was a step up; I don’t know.

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

*****

“Paul says in Ephesians 3:16: ‘That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man.’ That’s the same word where he talks about, ‘Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.’

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

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

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

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

The 'Plea of Redemption'

Will have travelogue entry tomorrow. In meantime, here's a short snippet I heard on an old CD:

Paul writes in Romans 3: [20] Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

[21] But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
[22] Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

You see that expression “faith of Jesus Christ”? That’s not faith IN Jesus Christ; that’s not me putting my faith in Him. Read the rest of the verse: “unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

There’s my faith in Him, says Richard Jordan. This is HIS faith, just like the righteousness of God is the righteousness that God Himself possesses. The systems of norms and standards that represent His character is what’s being talked about.

The integrity of Jesus Christ is the one who brings us to “the righteousness of God.” These other bibles that change that word even, and some of them that put but and that kind of stuff in its place, throw that away because that word even is important there.

Something that’s even is equal. They meet together; they’re equal to one another. The righteousness of God is even to that faith of Jesus Christ. You see, the reason the righteousness of God can be yours is because of the character of who Jesus Christ is. God can take the character of His Son and apply it to you and me.

That’s why understanding Him as our Kinsman Redeemer is important. That’s why understanding verse 25 is important: [25] Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God;

Let me ask you a question: Who’s putting faith in the blood there? I’ve discussed that with people for years. People say, “Well, you have to put faith in the blood.” Is that right? Yeah. But who else puts faith in the blood?

You know what the Father believes? He believes that what Jesus Christ did at Calvary is enough. Your faith in Him is simply agreeing with God the Father. That’s a wonderful truth because it all hangs on who He is.

Verse 26: [26] To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.

If the problem of redemption is our sin, the plea of redemption is, “Trust Him alone.” There’s no other place to go to find an answer to the problem. There’s no other place to go except in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s unto all; it’s available to everybody, but it’s applied to those that believe in Jesus.

The plea of redemption is there’s a price to be paid that you couldn’t pay; Jesus Christ paid it for you. The only option left is for you to trust Him.

There’s the old gospel song, “His Blood My Plea”:

His Blood Is All My Plea,
Through Grace Divine Alone,
To Set The Captives Free,
It Speaks Before The Throne.

His Blood, His Blood,
O Wondrous, Cleansing Fountain!
His Blood, His Blood,
It Flows From Calvary’s Mountain.

His Blood Is All My Plea,
Oh, Wondrous, Cleansing Wave!
It Reaches Even Me,
Its Virtue Now Doth Save.

His Blood Is All My Plea,
Naught Else Will Satisfy
That I Might Ransomed Be,
And Not Forever Die.

His Blood Is All My Plea;
His Favour Doth Bestow
A Greater Love On Me
Than Earthly Friends Can Show

Take a walk on the poverty side

While Paul says in the KJV, "But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus," the New English Bible translates the verse to incorrectly state that God will supply ALL your needs.

“He doesn’t say God’s going to supply all of your needs, or rather greeds,” says Richard Jordan. “People, do you realize most of things we want and desire strongly we can do without? Did you know you can do without health, wealth, education, social standing? You know Paul did all that.

“He says in I Corinthians 4:9, ‘We are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.’ You reckon that’s a pretty good social standing?! Not much. He says, ‘We are fools for Christ’s sake.’ The world didn’t think he had much education. They thought he was a nut. One guy said to him, ‘You’re mad; you’re a crazy man.’

“Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘You’re honorable but we’re despised. We’re weak but you’re strong. Even in this present hour we hunger and thirst.’ Paul says, ‘I warn you that there's a lot you can face.’

*****

“If the health and wealth preachers are right, Paul must have been one of the most wicked men who ever lived because he’s a guy who says, ‘I’m hungry right now. I don’t have enough to eat. I’m thirsty. I’m naked. I haven’t got clothes to wear.’

“He didn’t open up a closet and say, ‘I can’t figure out what to wear today.’ He said, ‘I don’t have it to wear.’ He says, ‘Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place.’ And yet he says, ‘I labor with my hands.’

“Now, there’s a guy working and still can’t make it! You ever had that problem?

*****

“This idea about health you hear preached all the time on the radio and tube—let’s be honest, you can get by in your life without being healthy.

“Go to the bookstore and get the book by quadriplegic Joni Eareckson Tada. Read the stories of people like her if you want to see the victory of God’s grace and His power being made perfect in weakness. In fact, you’ll see the kind of victory few of us who are whole physically ever enjoy.

“Paul says, ‘Be careful for nothing. Don’t worry about things.’ That word ‘careful’ there has the idea of anxiety and worry and fretting. Let me give you a quick illustration of that carefulness.

“In Luke 10:38, Martha’s complaining. She’s worrying, she’s overwrought, she’s weighted down with all this serving and gets distraught; she’s all in a dither about it.

“Jesus answered and said unto her, ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things. But one thing is needful and Mary has chosen that good part.’

“Rather than all the fuss and fuming about having the house perfectly straightened, the roast cooked just right, the gravy just right, the potatoes just right and everything just so, He says, ‘You know, Mary’s doing the better thing sitting here getting the Word.’

“Paul says, ‘Don’t be that way. Don’t be all caught up.’ You know how you get that way? Pride.

*****

“Worry is totally inappropriate in the life of a Believer. Why? Romans 8:24 says, ‘For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?’

“We have a day coming where God is going to declare us before the whole universe as His adult sons. Paul says, ‘You look around you and see all this undeserved suffering and your participation with it. You’re saved from being dragged down into the earthy by our hope.’

“You have a realm of doctrinal understanding that tells you what you see isn’t what’s lasting and with the eye of faith you know ‘the sufferings of this present world aren’t worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us.’

“Isn’t that wonderful stability? You operate in the realm of the reality of who you are in Christ. It’s inappropriate to have all the problems of life loom up and cut out the sunlight of the Book—the light from the Word of God.

“ ‘Be careful for nothing’ doesn’t mean you’re flippant; it just means you’re not going to worry about it. You’re not going to be troubled and brought to the place of inactivity through it as Martha was, just throwing up her hands and yelling, ‘Aghhhhhh!!!’ ”

*****

“I’m convinced that most Americans live with almost a panic-driven fear of poverty and of not having things. This has been a curse of Western civilization for centuries, and so you’re driven to have and to have.

“To me, one of the most touching things in the Book of Luke is to watch the Lord in just His human sympathies—He understood what poverty was. He understood the poor, and Luke constantly points to that.

“When He was born, there was no room for Him in the inn. If He had had an Am Ex Gold Card He probably could have gotten in, but He didn’t. He had a manger for a crib.

“In chapter 2, when He was just eight days old and His parents went to the temple, it says they offered a pair of turtle doves and two young pigeons. You know what that was? That was the poor man’s offering. That wasn’t the first offering; they didn’t have the money to offer the lamb.

“Jesus was raised in a humble home; not a home of wealth and splendor. He was raised in a home that knew what poverty was. Look at His parables—the Good Samaritan, the Prodigal Son.

“In Luke 5 you find the publican named Levi, who made Christ a great feast. The passage reads, [29] And Levi made him a great feast in his own house: and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.
[30] But their scribes and Pharisees murmured against his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with publicans and sinners?
[31] And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
[32] I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

“A preacher once preached a message called ‘The Table Talks of Jesus.’ He went over to chapter 10 where you’re at Mary and Martha’s house and then over to chapter 7 and that woman; He said she was a sinner but she was the woman who anointed His feet with oil and washed His feet with her own hair—the one who had nothing to pay yet He forgave all.

“Then you see Him sit at the table with them. You go through Luke and there are five or six places where you come into the meal and you see the Lord sitting in somebody else’s house. Somebody else has set the meal and yet He comes and sits with them as the Great Teacher.”

*****

Pleasure is the foundation of our society today and it is pursued secretly and publicly from cradle to grave. Obviously, though, as they say, ‘pleasure brings pain.’

Finding freedom from the pain (frustration, sorrow, fear, etc.) requires understanding the whole structure of pleasure.

In what is pure counter-intuitiveness to the world’s way of seeing things, the Apostle Paul testifies, “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake: for when I am weak, then am I strong.” 

Paul says any suffering we go through now isn’t even worthy of spending time on when we look at the glory that’s one day going to be revealed in us.

“Christ’s faithfulness is our resting place,” encourages Jordan. “He’s who God trusts and we can trust Him, too. There’s a lot of comfort and peace in that. A lot of, ‘I’m through with the toiling process in that.’

“Paul writes in Philippians 3, ‘Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.’

“The guy’s been saved 35 years and he’s still saying, ‘All I want in life is to know Him.’ You see how He’s to be the object of everything?”

Believers captivated by the devil

(new article tomorrow)

I was talking to a friend from church about how some true Believers, while certainly not satanically possessed, are satanically oppressed. She said, “I wonder what that entails exactly.”

Paul writes to Timothy in II Timothy 2:26, “And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”

“A snare is a trap used to hold somebody so they can’t get away; it doesn’t kill you, it just holds you,” explains Richard Jordan in a Bible study, confirming that a Believer today can be “demon or devil-influenced, and even demon or devil-captured.”

“There’s the old joke from years ago about the two raccoons who got caught in a trap; it snapped and clenched their rights paws. They realized that if they were still in their predicament come morning when the trapper arrived, they’d be dead meat.

“The female raccoon says, ‘Well, the only option we have is just to gnaw our leg off and live with three legs and not be killed.’ The male raccoon agrees, ‘Okay, I can see that.’

“So, she gnawed her leg off and went on about her business and came back a half-hour later to find the male still in the trap.

“She says, ‘Well, I thought we agreed we’d gnaw our leg off and be free?!’ He answered, ‘Well, I’ve gnawed three of them off and I’m still in the trap!’

*****

“Satan can’t kill you as a Believer, but he sure can snare you. He can cause you to be entrapped by error. Notice he takes you captive by ‘his will.’ Satan has a will for Believers.

“His opposing will for the Body of Christ is to neutralize you so you can’t effectively function as a member of the Body; you can’t function in the identity God’s given you. You get your mind off who you are in Christ, vacillate and move away.

“When Paul talks about ‘instructing those that oppose themselves,’ that’s the condition of a Believer under satanic influence. What does it mean when he says ‘oppose yourself’?

“It means you are one way—you’re a saint of the most high God—but you’re living another way as if you’re not. You live in opposition to who you really are. You’re saved but you’re living like you’re really lost. You’re living in the Spirit but walking in the flesh.”

*****

Satan is the great tempter and two times in Paul’s epistles he warns against falling for “enticing words.”

He writes in I Corinthians 2:4, “And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.”

In Colossians 2:4, he stresses, “And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.”

“That idea of enticing words—it’s words that are really enticements, where you’re trying to entice somebody into doing something for some other reason than what the real issue is," explains Jordan.

“If you were in the commerce world, they’d call it ‘bait and switch.’ Entice them to come in and then switch them to the thing you really wanted all along to do with them.

*****

Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:17, “For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.”

Jordan explains, “That ‘wisdom of words’; that’s talking about making your own way, giving your own explanation. It’s human viewpoint; man’s plan to do things. And what it does is make the gospel ‘of none effect.’ Galatians 6 is another explanation of that. When Paul talks about ‘fleshly wisdom,’ he’s talking about religious show.

“Galatians 6:12 says, ‘As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.’

“They just really want to make a ‘fair show of your flesh.’ They got a system they’re promoting. And it gets to be this big fleshly operation. Paul talks about the Corinthians ‘being corrupted from the simplicity that’s in Christ.’

“He starts out II Corinthians 11 by saying, ‘For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.’

 “That word conversation--look at I Peter 3. Sometimes you hear that word conversation, and oftentimes it’s chaffed at because it’s an Old English word that has more meanings to it than what we generally talk about.

“We usually mean our speech. You know, sit around and have a conversation, discussing things with people. But a conversation is more than just a conversational chat; it’s an entering into an inner play.

“Your conversation is not simply something that you hear with your ear; it’s something you can see with the eye. It’s more than just words. It’s something literally that you can see in someone. It’s the way they converse with life; it’s the way they interplay with life. It has to do with who you are and the whole circuit; the whole of what your life is about.

*****

Paul writes in II Corinthians 4:1-2, “But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.’

“I’ve learned for years that the truth will commend itself to a man’s conscience that wants the truth, and when it doesn’t commend itself to someone, you know why it isn’t? Because what they’re looking for is something different."

*****

In his 2005 book, The Apostasy of the Christian Church, Bible scholar R. Dawson Barlow writes, “But just to make sure we are not deceived by the niceties of some people and human ‘sweetness,’ it is at this point we must be very clear about the nature of apostasy. Apostasy does not usually deny the existence of God. It does not behave itself unseemly and cry out that it hates God.

“In fact, apostates are pretty nice people whose life philosophy is to get along with everybody, offend no one and attempt to make the world a better place.

“Apostasy pursues to serve a ‘god of his/her own imagination’ and serve ‘he, she, or even it’ through a form of religion whose foundation of authority is the subjective feelings they have on a certain matter.

“It matters not what the revelation of God says; the final, ultimate authority is, ‘How I feel about any issue in my heart!’ It rejects the objective authority of the Word of God as the final court of appeal, and, in the process of this rejection, embraces the deceitful, subjective message of the human heart and misinterprets it as God’s authoritative message.

“The buzz word of this growing number of people is, ‘Well, you have to do whatever is right for you.’ The conclusion is that nothing is really right or wrong, but what is right and wrong for me! This is nothing but a denial of any absolute truths.”

*****

In Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Huck reasons, “It don’t make no difference whether you do right or wrong, a person’s conscience ain’t got no sense, and just goes for him anyway.”

The conscience either “accuses or excuses,” and people who continuously violate their system of norms and standards learn to excuse sin. The thinking becomes, “Well, everybody else is doing it, so what difference does it make?”

Paul writes in Titus 1:15-16, “Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.
[16] They profess that they know God; but in works they deny him, being abominable, and disobedient, and unto every good work reprobate.”

Southern California preacher John Verstegen explains, “Because individuals are unsaved and operate in the ‘vanity of their mind’ on the basis of false doctrine—the satanic doctrine of this world—what happens over time is they then change that system in their inner man and their conscience goes along with it.

“Sometimes you ask the question how a person could do such a heinous sin and so forth. It’s because, over time, they have been taught that those things are acceptable and they justify it. That’s what Paul says in Romans 2.

“Why would someone do such a thing as murder someone? Well, because they’ve been taught that in certain circumstances it’s okay to murder and that they’re doing it for their god who approves of that type of thing, etc. 

“So they adjust and change that system of norms and standards they were born with and replace it with a wrong system. Even though their conscience initially questioned, ‘Well, is this right?’ it’s now said to be defiled.

*****

Because a newly saved person’s conscience is said to be “weak,” needing to be fortified through a steady diet of biblical truth, as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 8, it can be in a mixed state of confusion.

“On the one hand, it’s recognizing, ‘Hey, this is right and that’s wrong,’ but like this guy (in I Corinthians 8), he still thinks an idol is something real,” explains Verstegen. “So because his conscience previously bore witness to that thing and sacrificed to idols, now that he’s a Believer—and has a little bit of sound doctrine in his inner man—his conscience is kind of thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I belong to Christ now so this idol is nothing.’

“Now, what’s interesting is that a weak conscience can become defiled again. It can go back to what it was before the guy got saved. That’s the real issue here."

*****

The other thing that is true for an errant Believer is that his conscience can become “seared with a hot iron,” as Paul writes in I Timothy 2:4.

Verstegen explains, “You ever burnt yourself? When you sear something it’s lost its sensitivity to pain because you’ve actually burned the nerve endings and that’s why you can’t feel it anymore. You actually fried it. It’s a conscience that has been so affected it doesn’t bear proper witness anymore because it’s totally lost its sensitivity to bear proper witness to what’s right and wrong.

“In the context in I Timothy, this actually is talking about a Believer; somebody who was in the truth but then departed from the faith and their conscience has become seared.”

*****

Paul reminds the Corinthians in I Corinthians 12:2, “Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led.”

Jordan explains, “You know it’s very important that you understand that idolatry is more than just a man taking something and bowing down to it. There is a spirit in this world that leads men to worship idols. My friend, there is a satanic, demonic spirit that works in unsaved people and operates in them and it leads them around and it led these Corinthians to worship idols.

“Of that satanic spirit, Paul says in Ephesians 2:2, ‘Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.’

“That’s the prince of the invisible realm. It has to do with Satan and his combined host of subordinate demonic cohorts and their activities in the world. And you listen to me; the very creative genius of unsaved people is satanically inspired.

“People are led by this spirit and Satan’s object is to blind men’s minds to the truth and divert their worship from God Almighty unto himself and his cohorts. It’s religious kind of stuff a lot of times, but a lot of time its other stuff, too. It’s anything that diverts a man’s attention—his worship and his honor and what he concentrates on—away from Almighty God unto the god of this world.

“In the case of the Ephesians, they were religious. They went to church all the time and they prayed and they had a personal relationship with their god and they did all the rest.”