Exposing Israel's politicians, priests

(new article tomorrow for certain)

Ezekiel 8:11: [11] And there stood before them seventy men of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of Shaphan, with every man his censer in his hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up.

"The reason the 70 is important is because in Exodus 24 when God made the Mosaic Covenant with the nation Israel, there were 70 elders of the nation who signed the covenant.

"The 70 were chosen, Numbers 11, to oversee . . . these are the political, governmental representatives of the people. Here's the politicians. This is state-sponsored apostasy; it's what's in the HEART of the leaders of the nation," explains Richard Jordan.

Verse 12: [12] Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast thou seen what the ancients of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in the chambers of his imagery? for they say, The LORD seeth us not; the LORD hath forsaken the earth.

"When he says they're doing it in the dark, ever man in the chambers of HIS imagery, every one of these guys has their own pet god--the one that's their favorite and what's happening here is Ezekiel is seeing it as being exposed.

Ezekiel 14: [1] Then came certain of the elders of Israel unto me, and sat before me.

[2] And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[3] Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their heart, and put the stumblingblock of their iniquity before their face: should I be inquired of at all by them?
[4] Therefore speak unto them, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Every man of the house of Israel that setteth up his idols in his heart, and putteth the stumblingblock of his iniquity before his face, and cometh to the prophet; I the LORD will answer him that cometh according to the multitude of his idols;
[5] That I may take the house of Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through their idols.

"Watch it keep happening in Ezekiel 8:13: [13] He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations that they do.

"The image was bad, these 70 rulers of Israel in the dark worshipping graven images of their imaginations was ever worse, but He said there's something even worse than that.

Ezekiel 8:14: [14] Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the LORD's house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz.

"Tammuz is the god of the spring, the fertility god. The idea is winter comes, there's death, and then there's the rebirth of the spring, and what they're weeping about is Tammuz died, but he's going to rise again. The contrast with that is the God of Israel NEVER dies. You're weeping for a false god who's going to die and come back to life--that's where all the abominations of the fertility god come in.

"You go back in Kings and read about these things and when Hezekiah cleaned them all out, part of what he did was he took all the Sodomites out. All of that is always connected to a spiritual degeneration.

"Then He says in verse 15: [15] Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations than these.

"Things just get worse and worse and worse. The last thing, and this is the one that's sort of the bottom of the barrel . . . 

Verse 16: [16] And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.

"The inner court is where the priests ministered and there's a porch. It's got the two pillars and there's the Most Holy where the ark is and God's manifestation.

"He's standing at that door on the porch. You remember in Matthew 23 when he talks about Zachariah being the blood of the martyrs who was murdered between the porch and the altar? That's the porch; you're in the inner sanctum. You're literally in front of the door that leads you into the presence of God.

"Now the thing about it is, before you had the politicians and now you've got the priesthood and watch what they're doing. Their face is toward the east. They literally turned their backs on Jehovah, His presences, His glory, and are looking toward the east to worship the sun.

"They turned their back on their Creator and they're worshipping the creature. That's the very essence of what idolatry is per Paul's definition in Romans 1. They've literally turned their backs on who He is, what He's done.

Chapter 8 ends with, [17] Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here? for they have filled the land with violence, and have returned to provoke me to anger: and, lo, they put the branch to their nose.

[18] Therefore will I also deal in fury: mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity: and though they cry in mine ears with a loud voice, yet will I not hear them.

Where 'river to the sea' comes from

(new post this evening)

In Genesis 15, when God gave Abraham the Promised Land, it was from the Mediterranean all the way over to the Euphrates River. The Nile River on the south, the Mediterranean on the west and the Euphrates on the east.

Here, it's from the Mediterranean and the Nile to the Jordan River. So this is only the small swath of land from the river to the sea. You see how He says it in Ezkiel 47:

[18] And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
[19] And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward.
[20] The west side also shall be the great sea from the border, till a man come over against Hamath. This is the west side.

This is where the phrase "the river to the sea" comes from. These dudes today protesting Israel and calling Israel to be destroyed from "the river to the sea," have no idea they're quoting Scripture.

If you told them they were, they'd spit in your face. But it's just the way the Lord works things out. You wind up quoting His Word when you're trying to deny it.

In the Millennium, that's where's that piece of ground. The final inheritance, from the sea all the way to Euphrates, comes after the Millennium. Today we're still in the transition into it.

It's fascinating down in verse 21: [21] So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel.

Again, I emphasize, He's laying out their possession of the land. It's extremely important you realize it isn't just Israel; it's the land. God's intention with Israel is to restore His authority over the LAND; the planet.

This is where Jehovah is going to dwell. If you look in the last verse in the book, it's His city. He says, "The name of the city from that day shall be, 'The Lord is here.'

Jerusalem is going to be where Jehovah dwells. He's going to come and live here and He's never going to leave again. That's the whole point in Ezekiel.

Here's a post from March, entitled "Fear of losing," that's suddenly gained a lot of traction:

"The Pharisees minded what God spoke, but not what he intended. They were busy in the outward work of the hand, but incurious of the affections and choice of the heart. So God was served in the letter; they did not much inquire His purpose; and therefore they were curious to wash their hands, but cared not to purify their hearts."--quote online

*****

John 12:42-43: [42] Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: [43] For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.

The chief rulers were among the elect of the Jews, probably members of the Sanhedrin. At this point in Christ's ministry, the gospel was having inroads even among the leaders. But because of the Pharisees the leaders would not confess Christ. Knowing it would mean expulsion from their religious circle they were afraid of being ostracized and shunned.

“Being put out of the synagogue was a fearful thing for these Jews. In Luke 9, when Jesus began to tell His apostles about His going to the Cross, one of the things He says is He’s going to be rejected of the elders," explains Richard Jordan.

“That’s saying, ‘You’re not a part of Israel.’ When you did that to a Jew you completely cut off his whole hope; his whole identity. All of his connection with his family and his heritage; you cut it away. I mean, that favored nation held together. They struggled together; they stayed together. They were going to put these guys out.

“Then He says, ‘Not only will they put you out of the synagogue, thinking they are doing God’s service (‘We’re serving God by putting you out’), they’re going to kill you!’

“That’s not just hatred and rejection; that’s a physical attack that winds up in your death, and before they get you dead, they do all the things necessary to get you dead. They didn’t come up and shoot people because they didn’t have guns back then. They stoned them.

“It takes a little bit of time to stone somebody to death. I was reading an article the other day about how difficult it is to kill somebody by strangling them. You can shoot or knife somebody, but to strangle them isn’t just that you have to physically overpower them, which you do, but you literally have to hold them until their very life ebbs out of them.

“It takes more than physical strength; it takes a psychological toughness, meanness, hatred, anger, passion, whatever it is, because you have to hold them to the point where they don’t breathe anymore. In your hands you literally feel it and you literally feel it go away.

“You see, killing people is not…modern American Gentiles have made killing so easy. We send an airplane at seven miles up into the air and drop a bomb on somebody. Where the bomb lands is terrible but the dude that dropped the bomb goes back home and eats supper and goes to bed and never thinks about it.

“If that same guy had to put his hands around the neck of the woman that his bomb destroyed and squeezed the life out of, well there’d be a different kind of situation I bet.

“One of the things the Gentiles do is they constantly become better and better at killing people. We’re talking about modern science and the improvement of things, and you know what, every modern advancement and technology has been used, not just for the good of mankind, but to make it easier to kill people.

"You name it! In fact, most of the technological advancements that trickle down to you and me in life comes from military advancements where they were trying to stay a step ahead of the other guy so, ‘He can’t kill me; I can kill him first!’

*****

“But these guys are doing this because they thinking they’re serving God; this murderous rage where they’re going to kill you. You’ll see it in the Book of Acts.

Acts 5: [26] Then went the captain with the officers, and brought them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.

[27] And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,
[28] Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.
[29] Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
[30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.

“Because Peter and John had healed that man at the temple in Acts 3 they got called before the religious leaders and told, ‘Don’t do that again; you filled the city with this man’s doctrine,’ and because they kept preaching about the Lord Jesus Christ, they get called in again.

“If the rulers tell you not to do something God says to do, and you go ahead and obey God, that means the rulers might come down on you. You’re not doing it to be rebellious against rulers; you’re doing it to be faithful to God. Duties don’t conflict. And when God tells you to do something, you do what God tells you.

"But boy, when you break the religious rules of people . . . There’s no hatred like religious hatred, and be it a pope or a Protestant or an Imam, there’s no hatred, no persecution so fierce as that fired by a zeal for God and a zeal for ‘what’s right’ as you want it to be, as your religion says.”

Singing history

For his mass on Mother’s Day, Pope Leo “surprised the crowd” by singing the “Regina Caeli” prayer, a Latin prayer honoring the Virgin Mary “which recent popes would usually just recite and harked back to the old Latin Mass of the past.”

According to CNN’s website, “The surprise singing of the prayer was met with thunderous applause and joy from the crowd. It was a moment of joy and celebration, marking a new era in the papacy.”

*****

Ephesians 5: [19] Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;
[20] Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;

For the Bible Believer, spiritual songs are to come out of sound doctrine applied to experiences. It’s a song in your heart that comes out of taking the sound doctrine and saying, “This is what’s working in these circumstances.” Not the circumstances working, but the doctrine, explains Richard Jordan.

By the way, it’s a fascinating thing to study music in church history. Through the Dark Ages, the church at large didn’t sing.

They had a thing that’s very popular today; they had professional musicians that sang and the congregation listened and watched and didn’t understand most of it because it was in Latin.

They had what were called chants. You know what Gregorian chants are? That’s just occultic kind of moaning. Some of them are quite beautiful with the harmony, but there’s no doctrine in them.

There’s no Colossians 3: [16] Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.

And the average person can’t do them because the average person can’t keep a tune like that. So you have the “professionals” doing that stuff.

When the Protestant Reformation came along and the Bible got spread around, you know what came along with it?

When you come into the Reformation era, two books were popular: the Bible and a song book. I’ve got in my study two little red books called “The Hymns of Tersteegen” from the 18th century. People like you and me with our little song books.

We sing songs today—Martin Luther’s “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” We sing Charles Wesley’s “And can it be that I should gain an interest in the Saviors’ blood . . . Amazing love how can it be that thou, my God, should die for me.”

We sing songs from that era because the Word of God brought the singing back! That’s why we sing a lot of congregational songs. I’d just assume have everybody sing. The singing is just the natural expression of that inner harmony.

Virgin from another mother

Revelation 17:[5] And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.

We understand that in history there is this mother-child cult, but the Word of God is always going to use this language connected to a woman, says Alex Kurz.

At the end of verse 1 she's called a great whore. Verse 3: [3] So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

She's a whore, she's a woman, she's a mother. The reason Revelation 17 will use that language is because the Old Testament has already laid all of the groundwork about a female deity, a woman. Ultimately, she is this great whore, but she is a woman who has a number of daughters in history.

Isaiah 47:1: [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.

By the way, you see it says "sit in the dust." What does the dust conjure up? Not the forest. You see, everything keeps telling you where all this is happening. Notice, "O virgin daughter." Aphrodite is a virgin, Ashtaroth is a virgin.

[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.
[4] As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
[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.

She's a virgin who's called the lady. You see all the familiar language? You know what the Lord just described? "Make bare the leg, uncover the thigh." This woman is undressing herself.

In Revelation 17, the ultimate culmination, she's a whore. You can call her our lady or a virgin all you want, the Lord says this is the spiritual whoredoms and abominations and spiritual fornications and that cup of hers has tremendous spiritual influence. That's how the kings of the earth commit fornication.

Verse 9: [9] But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments.

She has children and widowhood. She's married so how can she be a virgin? You see the spiritual description God's providing.

Jeremiah 44:17: [17] But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth, to burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, as we have done, we, and our fathers, our kings, and our princes, in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem: for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil.

She's also the queen of heaven. We tend to think about that in connection with the west, but do you know there's infatuation with the queen of heaven in the Land of Shinar today?

You see in Jeremiah they're deluded into thinking that, 'Wow, by worshipping this queen of heaven we'll receive supernatural provisions, protection, blessing.'

[18] But since we left off to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto her, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.
[19] And when we burned incense to the queen of heaven, and poured out drink offerings unto her, did we make her cakes to worship her, and pour out drink offerings unto her, without our men?

Cakes. Do you know there was footage after the towers came down on 9/11 showing Palestinians passing out cakes, cookies, baked goods.

Micah 7: [8] Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

[9] I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.
[10] Then she that is mine enemy shall see it, and shame shall cover her which said unto me, Where is the LORD thy God? mine eyes shall behold her: now shall she be trodden down as the mire of the streets.

You see this female entity? She's the lady of kingdoms, the virgin, the queen of heaven. God says, "She's the one who is my enemy." Jeremiah 50 and 51 are actually two chapters devoted to the destruction of God's enemy and she's a woman.

Zechariah 5: [5] Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth.
[6] And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth.
[7] And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah.
[8] And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof.
[9] Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven.
[10] Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah?
[11] And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.

When you think about a stork, what comes to mind? Babies being delivered. There's a woman called "wickedness," and she possesses religious garb.

This woman has a house and it's in the land of Shinar. That's the area we're dealing with in Revelation 17.

*****

The word mystery in Revelation 17 is extremely appropriate in light of this invisible activity that IS taking place in human history.

Verse 4: [4] And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

What is the significance of this purple and scarlet color? Interestingly enough, in Matthew 27, do you remember what they did to our Lord Jesus Christ?

[28] And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe.
[29] And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!

Mark 15: [17] And they clothed him with purple, and platted a crown of thorns, and put it about his head,

[18] And began to salute him, Hail, King of the Jews!

If one verse says scarlet and another verse says purple what can we conclude? It was both. The color of the garment the whore has in both purple and scarlet. It was a robe that contained the two principal colors of majesty and royalty associated with being a king.

In other words, that great whore has this political influence. That great whore is seating on a beast, which denotes the control she has upon that ten-nation confederacy.

In the Old Testament there is a queen singled out and the Lord uses different terminology to describe this queen. She's not only a whore, she's also a virgin.

Isn't that a contradiction? How can you be a virgin and a whore? Ah, when we study that Babylonian system we're going to learn some things about a woman who is viewed as a queen, who is both a whore and a virgin.

Starting to sound familiar? A mother who's a virgin who gives birth to a child. All of that stuff precedes the birth of Jesus Christ by about 2-3,000 years. Nothing new under the sun, as we find out.

Not only is this woman wearing the garments of royalty, but verse 4 also says she was "decked with gold and precious stones and pearls."

Revelation 18:11: [11] And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more:

[12] The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron, and marble,

Who's buying from who? This city Babylon is importing these products.

Leo (lion): 'Uniting everyone to be one single people'

Here's the outtake from Wednesday night's study that I wanted to make sure I posted:

The most provoking, agitating thing that could have ever happened to Satan and his policy of evil was to see the leader of his whole rebellion, Paul, saved in Acts 9.

Can you imagine how he felt about that? “I got me a guy leading the rebellion, head and shoulders committed to it, and ‘bang!’—that wasn’t supposed to happen! Where’s that in the program?!”

It’s not; not in the prophetic program. That guy was supposed to lead the whole thing. All of a sudden, “BINGO” there goes . . . And everything from Acts 7 on in the Book of Acts shows that prophetic program has been interrupted.

In fact, in Acts 9 it says all those kingdom churches had “rest.” They weren’t supposed to have rest; they were supposed to have turmoil. Why did they have rest? Because the leader of Satan’s persecution had been converted and Satan's whole campaign had been thwarted.

*****

Here's the excerpt from Pope Leo's first speech that was replayed over and over today on FOX News:

"Therefore, without fear, united, hand in hand with God and with one another, let us move forward. We are disciples of Christ, Christ goes before us; the world needs His light, humanity needs Him as a bridge to be reached by God and His love. Help us as well—help one another—to build bridges through dialogue, through encounter, uniting everyone to be one single people always in peace."

I thought of this post from last year:

It's always the female in the Bible. Her, she, her, she. God identifies an enemy as being a female deity. Historically it's the mother-son cult. With the Phoenicians it was Ashteroth and her son Tammuz. In Egyptian history she's called Isis. In Greek culture she's Aphrodite and in Roman culture she's Venus.

"Today she's called Mary. Is Mary an issue in the land of Shinar today? Is she a prominent figure in Islam? Mary is mentioned 34 times in the Koran. She's called 'the greatest of all women.'

"No other woman in the Koran is named except Mary. In fact, Sura 19 in the Koran is actually named after Mary. You see how culture will adopt and absorb?" says Alex Kurz.

"People argue, 'We don't worship Ashteroth!' Well, if you're worshipping Mary, where did it come from? Do Muslims really venerate Mary?

"The Koran teaches that Mary 'was born without the touch of Satan.' There are two people that's said of: Mary and Jesus, momma and son.

"Jesus is always called the 'son of Mary' in the Koran. He is never called the son of God. Why? Those two people are said to be born without the touch of Satan.

"There are Muslim theologians who say that term means she was born sinless. We know the religious system that believes Mary was born without sin. Out of the Koran they believe she 'kept her chastity.' In other words, she's a virgin.

"The Koran teaches that Mary is a sign to mankind. Mary, in Islam, is called the 'queen of saints.' She's called 'our lady.' There is in the land of Shinar in the Middle East--Mary, after the death and burial of Jesus Christ, moves to Turkey. There is a shrine called the 'House of Mary' in Ephesus in Turkey. According to tradition, this is where Mary spent the last years of her life.

"Where's Satan's seat in the Book of Revelation? Turkey. You've heard of 'Our Lady of Fatima.' Fatima is in Portugal. Did you know the Muslims dominated Portugal for centuries. You know where the name comes from? Mohammed's favorite daughter was Fatima.

"This site in Portugal is one of the most visited sites among Muslims. They believe in signs, wonders and miracles. You've heard of these Marian apparitions where supposedly signs, wonders and healings occur. You know that Muslims believe that?

"There are sites all over the Middle East that are believed to have this connection with Mary; they're called Marian sites and they're in Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Egypt.

"There's a book written by Monsignor Luigi, a diplomat for the Vatican who spent years in the Muslim world and believes 'Mary is the bridge and the link between Islam and Christianity.'

"He writes: 'Further proof is found in the pilgrimage that Muslims have made for centuries to Marian shrines in the Middle East.' Damascus, Morocco, Algeria, Casablanca, Algiers.

"There was a site in Egypt where supposedly Mary appeared over a few weeks period of time to perhaps 2 million Muslims.

"Ultimately, Revelation 17, there's this fascination with a woman connected to Baal worship that manifests itself in different shades and flavors in human history. Is Mary going to be the bridge that brings together East and West?"

*****

Revelation 17:3: [3] So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. 

"We've said so much about the area all of this is focused on. It's that wilderness area; it's called the 'island of the sea.'

"It's that Middle East area, beginning with northeast Turkey, extending down to Egypt, going all the way over to the Persian Gulf, following the Euphrates River.

"In human history, beginning in Genesis, we have the worship of the sun, the sun god representing Nimrod, which morphed into Baal worship. There's also in history the worship of the moon.

"In the Bible that moon represents Ashteroth. What you learn in this Babylonian tradition is that Baal and Ashteroth have a son named Tammuz. Interestingly enough, Tammuz, who is born via virgin birth by Ashteroth, is considered the reincarnation of Baal. In other words, the son that the virgin Ashteroth produces is really Baal incarnate.

"That whole concept of God enfleshing Himself has its origins in Genesis 10 and 11. You say, 'Wait a minute, it isn't until God promises the nation of Israel Immanuel--you know, God with us.'

"Sometimes we've got to give Satan a little more credit than we do. Genesis 3:15: [15] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

"This is the verse in which Satan launches his counterfeit plan and policy of evil. God is promising that the woman is going to produce a seed and that that seed, ultimately, is going to crush Satan.

"So guess what Satan now launches in answer to God's threat of a woman? Verse 15 actually tells us. In human history we see this infatuation--there is a mother-child cult that has its origins back there in Genesis 3. We see different names given to her.

"Satan has his own counterfeit seed that ultimately is going to culminate out there in the 70th Week. As you examine the issues, practices, behaviors, rituals and rites of Baal worship, this is nothing new under the sun.

"Ashteroth who, by virgin birth, has a son; the son is the incarnation of his father in human flesh. Isn't that what Jehovah God promises and does fulfill when He said, 'I'm going to indwell human flesh'? All of that stuff was already believed in the pagan form."

Catholic Chicago, once citadel of truth

(new article tomorrow)

“Paul didn’t go into the mountains and the country; he went where the people were, the population centers. I’ve said for years, one of the greatest tragedies in fundamental evangelical Christianity in America in the 20^th Century is, in the middle of the century, the great host of evangelical Bible-preaching ministries fled the cities to the suburbs because it was easier to live in the suburbs than it was to live in the turmoil developing in the cities. ‘The flowery beds of ease,’ as the song says.

"When fundamentalist Believers fled, they left an absence of truth. For Chicago, since the latter part of the last century, it has been so tightly under the grip of Romanism," explains Richard Jordan.

“Where the people are is where the problems are. Where the problems are, people are going to solve the problems. If truth leaves, what’s the church? The pillar and ground of the truth. The problems will be solved with error, but the problems will get solved because the nature of man is he has to have that order. That’s the way God structured man and his society to function.

“If you go back to the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s, ‘50s, Chicago was the citadel of fundamentalism in America. The pastor of Moody Church in the ‘40s, Harry Ironside was called the Archbishop of Fundamentalism.

“Pastor O’Hair of North Shore Church, our ministry, was right there are on the north shore of Chicago and reached out around the world from there, but it had the gospel-preaching center.

“One of the first radio stations in the country preaching the gospel was built in the bell tower of North Shore Church at Wilson Avenue and Sheridan Road in 1926. Chicago was a hub for fundamental Bible-preaching Christianity. New York City’s Isaac Haldeman of First Baptist Church. Philadelphia. These they were great centers of fundamental, Bible-believing, Scofield dispensationalism; they were recovering these truths.

“Historically, missionaries would go to a foreign country and they didn’t go to the cities; they’d go to the mountains and then get a following. Take pictures and come back home and show pictures of little babies and people in need and raise money.

“The first 300 years after Paul were the greatest years of evangelism, outreach, expanding the Body of Christ in all of church history. We’re going into a culture right now—our country is falling back into the culture that the world has been in for 2,000 years.

“You’re going to live to see in the next decade a world in America that is just almost exactly like the world Paul lived in, but remember what God did in that world for the Body of Christ because all the distractions were taken away and they just had truth."

From November, 2019:

The Roman Colosseum, owned and operated by the Vatican since the Middle Ages and said to be the most-visited tourist destination in the world, now has a statue of Molech, the Canaanite deity heavily associated with child sacrifice, at its grand entrance! 

"The Colosseum was once a place that saw Christians fed to lions, killed by gladiators, or rolled into pitch and set on fire as torches," reads an article posted to PulpitandPen.org. "The Vatican has ownership and authority over the Colosseum and all of its displays, exhibits, and functions. As Breaking Israel News writes… 'There is no way that such a thing could be done without direct permission from the highest levels of the Vatican. The Colosseum of Rome is owned by the Vatican, and specifically the Diocese of Rome, also called the Holy See. If anyone wants to do anything there, they must get permissions from the office of the Diocese of Rome. This exhibition, called 'Cathargo: the immortal myth' could not be held there at all unless permissions were granted at high levels.' ”

Last month, during closing Mass of its shamanistic Amazon Synod, the Vatican accepted a pagan offering to the “earth goddess” known as Pachamama. 

"The cult of the 'earth goddess' — or demon — is alive and well in the remote reaches of the rainforest, where animal and even human sacrifice is still practiced," writes Catholic blogger Steven Mosher.  "Infanticide is still common among the Yanomami and other Amazonian tribes, and children born handicapped are said to lack a soul and are often sacrificed.

"Much has been written about the disturbing shamanistic ritual that was carried out in the Vatican gardens, but a couple of details have been overlooked, including Pope Francis’s role in the ritual.

"The ritual was presented as a 'tree-planting ceremony' celebrating St. Francis of Assisi’s love of nature, but this was just a smokescreen. During the course of the ritual, Pope Francis received and blessed a Pachamama idol and was given a pagan necklace, an offering of soil to Pachamama, and a Tucum ring.

"The Tucum ring is a black wooden ring made from an Amazonian palm tree. It is often taken to symbolize a commitment to Liberation Theology, a Marxist distortion of the Faith that emphasizes liberation from poverty over liberation from sin.

"But in shamanistic Pachamama rituals, such as the one conducted in the Vatican gardens, it has a deeper and darker meaning. Here a gourd rattle and occult spells are used to direct demonic energy to the Tucum, which comes to represent a spiritual marriage with the 'earth goddess' or demon."

Take a look at this article posted to LifeSiteNews:

CHICAGO, November 8, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago defended the use of the “Pachamama” statues during the Amazon Synod, saying the church has “always adopted pagan elements in its traditions and especially its liturgical rites” while quoting from a Vatican document about “inculturation.”

Writing in the diocesan newspaper Chicago Catholic on Wednesday, Cardinal Cupich asserted that the “artwork” at the Vatican depicting Pachamama — a fertility goddess venerated by indigenous people of South America — was merely “a pregnant woman, a symbol of motherhood and the sacredness of life, that represents for indigenous peoples the bond humanity has with our “mother earth,” much as St. Francis of Assisi portrayed in his Canticle of the Creatures.” Cupich was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in November 2016. 

Catholics around the world were outraged last month to see a pagan ceremony take place in the Vatican Gardens before the opening of the Amazon Synod where people bowed down to the ground and worshiped the Pachamama idol as Pope Francis and other top-ranking prelates looked on. The October 4 ritual, captured on video, shows Pope Francis blessing the pagan statue before receiving it as a gift. 

*****

When Paul warns Timothy that "perilous times shall come," the term "perilous" is the idea of dangerous. Talking about his life, Paul writes in II Corinthians 11:26, "In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren."

 “All of those conditions are dangerous conditions that can kill you, can overwhelm you; they're horrendous and can overpower you,” explains Jordan. 

 “In Romans 8, Paul uses the term in an interesting way. Verse 35 says, ‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?’

 “Perilous times can have to do with you just being taken out and slaughtered. They’re dangerous times.

 “When he describes them in II Timothy 3, the nature of the age under grace—it’s not going to be getting better.

 “I remember in the ’80s, right after I’d come up from Alabama to Chicago, preaching a message at North Shore Church and I quoted a verse in Ecclesiastes. Afterward, I had three people come up to me and ask, ‘Where is that verse?’ I thought everybody knew the verse but I came to find out people don’t read the Book of Ecclesiastes.

 “Ecclesiastes 8:11 says, ‘Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.’

 “Isn’t that what Peter said about the dispensation of grace? II Peter 3 says, ‘The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.’

 “Man doesn’t say, ‘Wow, I’m glad I missed the wrath! Thank you for not destroying me!’ He says, ‘Oh, He doesn’t see. I’ll go out and do some more.’

 “Isaiah 26:10 says, [10] Let favour be shewed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness: in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the LORD.

 “You know what the longsuffering of God demonstrates? The complete depravity of humanity. And the longer the dispensation of grace goes on, the longer you’re going to see a more and more mature depravity overtake mankind.

 "De-evolution, not evolution, is man’s pattern. That’s why that image in Daniel 2 starts at the head and winds up at the feet. Man doesn’t go from the dust to glory; he goes from glory to the dust."

Inside job leading Israel into ditch

Here’s an outtake from tonight’s study at my church and will have more tomorrow:

Isaiah 3: [8] For Jerusalem is ruined, and Judah is fallen: because their tongue and their doings are against the LORD, to provoke the eyes of his glory.
[9] The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.

You know the Sodomites. What do they do? When Paul talks about giving up the nations in Romans 1, he says: [26] For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
[27] And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.

Their own hand is rewarding them the evil. It not that something’s coming from the outside; it’s their doing, and he calls it “vile affections,” explains Richard Jordan.

The Sodomites were doing things contrary, taking the things God did and changing it into a lie.

Now what’s Israel doing? They’ve joined them. They’re declaring; they’re not trying to hide it. They’re not trying to hold it back. They’re putting it out on the table like this is the right thing to do and we want everybody to see it and be proud of it.

You see that sentence is they’re going to be rewarded evil that they produce. This is an interesting verse in Isaiah 2:10: [10] Enter into the rock, and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty.

So, right in the middle of all this pronunciation and description of what they’re doing, He says, “Listen, even in Sodom God remembered Lot.”

You remember that verse in II Peter: [7] And delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked: [8] (For that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds;)
[9] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

What did God do? He called Lot and his family out of Sodom. Even in the midst of all that favored nation, there was mercy to people who trusted Him and that’s what he’s saying here.

Isaiah 3:12: [12] As for my people, children are their oppressors, and women rule over them. O my people, they which lead thee cause thee to err, and destroy the way of thy paths.

Notice He still calls them “my people.” They haven’t gone into captivity yet. They’re still in the Fourth, looking at the Fifth Course.

He says, “Destroy the way of thy paths.” That’s His plea. He pleads with them, “Wake up!” There’s a verse like that in Matthew 23 with the Lord just before He dies. He denounces the leadership of the Pharisees leading Israel into the ditch. He’s literally denouncing the people who led Israel into the condition of Isaiah 3.

Matthew 23:37: [37] O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!

Judgment is His strange work; it’s not His desire. And when He said, “O my people,” it’s God pleading with them, “Come now, let us reason together. I don’t want you to go. But your rebellion takes you away.”

Moses said to them, “I set before you life and death. Choose life!” That’s God’s counsel and He gives it to them again and again. They’re looking to be carried into that Fifth Course of judgment; they aren’t quite there yet so He’s pleading with them, explaining to them the problem.

Here’s the reason: [13] The LORD standeth up to plead, and standeth to judge the people.

By the way, “children are their oppressors and women rule over them.” There’s no leadership left among the people who are designed to rule the people. The children, they’re foolish; they’re capricious, cowardly. Verse 4 tells you that:

[4] And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
[5] And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

The don’t have any leadership left among the people who are supposed to be leading the nation. They’ve completely turned aside. So He pleads with them, and here’s the warning:

[14] The LORD will enter into judgment with the ancients of his people, and the princes thereof: for ye have eaten up the vineyard; the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
[15] What mean ye that ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor? saith the LORD GOD of hosts.

Now, He’s going to stand up; He’s getting ready to come back in judgment. He’s going to stand up to plead; that’s what verse 10 is. But He’s also standing up to judge.

He already told you about it in Isaiah 2:19: [19] And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.

That’s the Second Advent. Match that verse with Psalm 110: [1] The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
[2] The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.

(to be continued tomorrow . . . )

Everlasting love

(sorry for delay and new article tomorrow for certain). 

 In Natalie Cole's classic 1975 love song, This Will Be, the lyrics include:

This will be an everlasting love
This will be the one I've waited for . . .

I'm so glad you found me in time
And I'm so glad that you rectified my mind . . .

Loving you is some kind of wonderful
Because you showed me just how much you care . . .

This will be an everlasting love
Oh, yes it will now!

Jeremiah 2 begins: [1] Moreover the word of the LORD came to me, saying, [2] Go and cry in the ears of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth, the love of thine espousals, when thou wentest after me in the wilderness, in a land that was not sown.

"When He talks about 'the love of thine espousals,' He's saying, 'I remember back in the early days.' Do you ever do that? He says, 'You remember when you fell in love with me in the wilderness and I courted you?'

"You ought to read sometime Ezekiel 16 about the wonderful story of the birth of Israel and how they were betrothed to one another," says Jordan. "This is the passage in Revelation 2, at the church in Ephesus, when he says, 'You've forgotten your first love.'

"God set His love on Israel because He had a purpose He was going to accomplish in them. They were weak and insignificant; they weren't the issue. It was His purpose with them that was the issue.

"The love that He loved them with, Jeremiah 31 is the chapter in which the New Covenant is delineated: [31] Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

[32] Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

"That's a reference back to chapter 2. God says, 'Even though I loved them and was devoted to them as a loving spouse and we entered into a covenant of companionship, a marriage relationship, yet they broke the covenant.'

"Now, in that context He's already said to them verses 1-3: [1] At the same time, saith the LORD, will I be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be my people.

[2] Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.
[3] The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

"When He says, 'The people which were left of the sword,' those are the people talked about in I John who found grace in the wilderness. They learn the lesson that the Old Covenant, the Law, was designed to teach them. There's a schoolmaster who showed them they couldn't do for themselves; they needed Jehovah to do it for them.

"In Joshua, the people from Ai just beat the britches off of Israel and they said, 'Well, what's going on?!' God says, 'There's sin in the camp and it's got to be dealt with. You've got to purge out the rebel from your midst.' They go to the valley of Achor and judge sin in their midst and separate out the true from the false.

"By the way, in the latter part of Hosea 2, He said, 'After I purge out the rebel, I'm going to allure you and draw you back in and I'm going to marry you again.' 'Wow, we going to get married again! And we're going to be RESTORED back to our first love relationship!' They find grace in the wilderness.

"That issue of that everlasting love and finding grace in the wilderness, that's what the New Covenant is all about for the nation Israel. 

"On the night before our Lord dies, He goes into the Upper Room. John 13:1: [1] Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

"What was in the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ at Calvary? Hebrews says, 'Who for the joy that was set before Him.' For the joy of that kingdom out there, for that everlasting love that He loved them with so that He could give them grace in the wilderness and bring them into that kingdom. For the joy that was set before Him He endured the Cross, despising the shame.

"So, when John comes along in I John he's reminding them, 'You want to see God's love for you? You want to see this everlasting love God has for you to get you through that wilderness and carry you into the kingdom? Are you wondering over there about whether He really loves you or not, or whether He's just?'

"We've already learned in James and Peter all about how they need to trust Him, they ought to trust Him, they should trust Him, they can trust Him, and now John says, 'Here, let me remind you of why you trust Him. Because He loves you. You're the object of His love. The very day He gave birth to the nation, He gave birth to you so He could love you and marry you and have you as His own. It's been an everlasting love and God's manifested it and made it real in that He sent His Son into the world so we might live.' "

Pride, hardened down to a perfection

In the Bible we learn the entire world is saturated with pride and we know why and we know why it hardens.

The mind becomes implacable and it's hardened in pride. It's difficult to penetrate it with light and truth and understanding; there's no means of access, says Richard Jordan.

Satan is a king over all "the children of pride," says the Bible. The unsaved humanity is a mirror image of their father the devil and he is the reigning authority over all his children.

Pride courses through their veins and because of that pride, there is this ungrateful response to the things of God. They're not thankful.

Satan has this proudful ambition to usurp what is rightfully God's; what belongs rightfully to the Creator, and ever since Genesis 3, unsaved humanity falls right into the lap of that prideful desire to achieve, to ascend, to make a name for one's self.

Did he not offer to Eve, "Ye shall be as gods"? He's saying to her, "You see, you don't have to be inferior, you don't have to play second fiddle; you deserve better."

The same individuals who are lifted up in self-adoration, self-love (Paul says they are lovers of their own selves), they're boasters, a bunch of braggarts. They're haughty, and not only that, they're proud.

When you study what pride is, and surely we could go to a dictionary, pride simply is a preoccupation with self. There is this excessive desire to be the attention, to be appreciated and adored. There's this unhealthy desire to be admired by others.

When you find pride in the Bible, you find this lustful desire to be the center of attention. What often happens as a result is you will see a proudful person begin to look at others with contempt.

That haughty spirit of puffed up arrogance will lead one to begin to look down on others. There is this false sense of conceited superiority that leads toward looking at others as being inferior.

Pride, by Bible definition, is extremely deadly, extremely dangerous, and there is this link between pride and unthankfulness.

In Romans 1, right off the bat, as the Apostle Paul indicts humanity, [21] Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. [22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, when they knew god they glorified him not as God.

In their attitude of unthankfulness and ingratitude they rely upon their haughty sense of professing wisdom.

Notice, neither were they thankful, but they became vain in their imaginations. They replaced that spirit of thankfulness. They displaced any gratitude that should have been expressed because of the creative power and wisdom of Almighty God, and what they did is they suppressed any attitude of thanksgiving with vain imaginations.

II Corinthians 10:5 says, [5] Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

The idea here is that humanity--they presume, they assume they know what's happening. They assume they know what's going on. They assume they know how man came into existence. They assume they know how God thinks in some ways as well.

Paul says meekness is the capacity to bring into subjection every thought to the obedience of Christ. It's not so much bringing my thoughts so that I'm always obeying Christ, but rather, just like Jesus Christ in meekness chose to obey His Father.

Meekness is not weakness. Rather, it's the ability to restrain power, ability, strength. To restrain one's prerogatives. He chose not to exercise His royal rights and prerogatives as an equal co-member of the godhead. He chose to restrict His divine abilities.

Jeremiah 49:16: [16] Thy terribleness hath deceived thee, and the pride of thine heart, O thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that holdest the height of the hill: though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle, I will bring thee down from thence, saith the LORD.

Pride deceives and convinces you of something that just simply isn't true. It distorts reality. By the way, the idea of vain imaginations--again, Paul, when he talks about the imagination and every high thing, it's talking about prideful understanding and wisdom.

So when you think about the deception, it's all imaginary! A proudful person convinces themselves, "I am right; you're wrong." Pride convinces that person of things that just simply are not true.

Psalm 73:6 says, "Therefore pride compasseth them about as a chain; violence covereth them as a garment." Pride is bondage; it makes you a slave. it's like a chain of enslavement.

Proverbs 13:10: [10] Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.

Proverbs 16:[5] Every one that is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD: though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.

[6] By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.
[7] When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.
[8] Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues without right.
[9] A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

Proverbs 6:16-17: [16] These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: [17] A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,

By the way, that's No. 1 on the list. The No. 1 abomination is a proud look. When it says a proud look, it's not suggesting that somebody looks proud, or has the appearance of pride. It's talking about a pride-filled person who evaluates and sees everything or everyone as being beneath them, as being inferior; as being unworthy.

It's not a, "Look, man, he dresses proudly," or, "He looks proud," but rather it's the way he evaluates, the way he perceives. The proud look is the way he interprets his surroundings.

Again, there is that twisted sense of superiority of the one who has the proud look. He views things through the lens of that empty, vain, imaginative, haughty pride that would lift himself in exaltation against the knowledge of God; against what God is saying and against all that God is doing."

*****

II Peter 2: [9] The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished:

[10] But chiefly them that walk after the flesh in the lust of uncleanness, and despise government. Presumptuous are they, selfwilled, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignities.

All of chapter 2 is about describing these false prophets and the kind of sin they'll be involved in.

They despise dignities; they throw them aside, they want no part of them. They have this covetous life that's focused on nothing but the sins of the flesh and when authority comes in . . . you see the self-life wants to do its own thing.

It's when someone who's self-absorbed, self-willed and self-centered is opposed by authority that comes along and says, "Don't do that."

You remember in Isaiah 3 where it says children are going to reign over you, and the reason you discovered is the people who are charged with the responsibility of passing on the traditions of society and the principals of a culture . . . 

Isaiah 3:[1] For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of hosts, doth take away from Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and the whole stay of water,

[2] The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient,
[3] The captain of fifty, and the honourable man, and the counseller, and the cunning artificer, and the eloquent orator.
[4] And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them.
[5] And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable.

When nobody is there who will say to the kid, "No, you can't do that; that's wrong and not in your best interest," then they just go out willy-nilly and do whatever they want and they get addicted to that and that's what they want all the time.

Well, these people in II Peter 2 are way down the road in self-will. We see them back in the first three verses: [1] But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

[2] And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of.
[3] And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

They completely throw off the things of God and want nothing to do with what God's doing and they just want to go out in that self-life that says, "Just do your own thing."

In the Bible, when you lust after something that means you have a strong passion for it, and this is a lust of uncleanness; it's not a lust and passion for good things.

It's that autonomous, "I'm going to be my God and I'll be your God if you sit still long enough and I can get you in shackles."

These people in II Peter have that down to a perfection. This issue is really the ultimate goal of the satanic policy of evil and the course of sin he set for himself and for man.

Romans 1:22-24: [22] Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,

[23] And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
[24] Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:

They've turned their back on God and His Word and His authority and who He was and they decided they were going to strike out on their own and do their own thing.

Verse 25: [25] Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

That verse crystallizes the whole lie program. It's the issue of idolatry, but it's more than just bowing down to an idol of wood or stone; it's the issue of taking the creature and making the creature God. The deification of the creature; making the creature equal or superior to the Creator.

Answers vs. nonsense malarkey

(new article tomorrow)

"Somebody once wrote a gospel tract entitled, 'What to do if you miss the Rapture.' Point #1, according to the tract, 'Don’t get excited, you were going to hell anyway. If the fact you’re going to hell doesn’t bother you today, why would you worry about the Rapture?'

"Rejection of God's Word results in chaos that leads to hurt, anger, frustration and ultimately violence. It will not only do that personally, but it does that culturally, and when you don’t have any sound doctrine . . .

"If righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach to any people, then the amount of righteous thinking in a population is going to exalt the nation and the amount of evil, erroneous thinking is going to destroy the nation. That’s how Satan 'weakens the nations,' explains Richard Jordan.

"II Thessalonians 2, talking about the Antichrist in the future, says, [6] And now ye know what withholdeth that he might be revealed in his time.

"The program that’s going to produce the Antichrist is already working; it’s being held back. The Antichrist’s program can’t come to fruition because God’s forming the Body of Christ, but the thing that’s going to be there is already working. The culture and the world we live in is already being dominated by the Adversary to produce his will, his goal.

*****

"One of the reasons you hear so much about the church growing exponentially in the first three centuries had nothing to do with going back to Pentecost. It had to do with being who they were and this new culture, this new identity that was being created in a world that had never heard the name of Jesus Christ until that century. In a world that had never heard about the gospel of grace until then.

"Think about this, when Paul went out there, he was the only dude who knew this stuff. People say, 'Well, there’s nobody in our town who believes any of this.' Well, there was a time when Paul said, ‘Nobody in the WORLD knew this!’

"Two things happened in the first three centuries. No. 1, they produced a culture among the Believers of unity and oneness that did away with all the class distinctions. No. 2, in the second and third centuries, there was a great pandemic. About 20 years of pandemic centered in Rome. Thousands of people dying every day and it was the Christians giving themselves to love and good works that produced a witness. It had nothing to do with, ‘Let’s go back to Pentecost!’ No, not hardly.

"It’s important you get the idea going on here. I Corinthians 12 says, [12] For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.
[13] For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.
[14] For the body is not one member, but many.

"Your physical body has all kind of members and yet it’s one body, and that’s how the Body of Christ is. Why? ‘For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.'

*****

"Bad doctrine from people who don’t rightly divide the Word is no help in understanding or overcoming the racial bigotry, the social distress, the hurt.

"These people are of no help because they don’t have the answer, which is in God’s Word rightly divided. It’s in who God’s made us and 'the one new man.'

"Only Jesus Christ can live His life. He gave His FOR us at Calvary so He could give His life TO us when we trusted Him so then He could live His life THROUGH us as we walk by faith in an understanding of who we are. Everything else would be an outward, forced shell.

"The answer to racism that’s being promoted today among evangelicals ('Big Eva' they call it; I call it the Evangelical Industrial Complex); the answer to the social problems is what’s called being a 'woke social warrior.' 

"Here’s the way they do it. Tim Keller, best-selling Christian author and founder of Redeemer Church in Manhattan, was one of the titular heads of the social warrior movement; Russell Moore's their southern Baptist guy.

"Using Galatians 2:14, where Paul rebukes Peter for leaving the Gentiles, Keller writes in an article, ‘Paul deals with Peter’s racial pride and cowardice by declaring that he was not living in line with the truth of the gospel.’

"What these people say is the reason in Acts 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 that the Pentecostal church only focused on Israel . . .  As far as Acts 11:19, they go out preaching to none but the Jews only and their answer for that is because Peter and the apostles were 'racist.' Now, you’ll hear that everywhere you go in this stuff and they argue, ‘We can’t be racist.’

"They want to go back to Pentecost to get the Pentecostal power, but the guys they say had the Pentecostal power were racist because they only went to the Jews. You say, ‘Hello, anybody awake?’ Not many.

"When I tell you that you laugh because you know the reason the apostles didn’t go to anybody but the Jews is not because they were racist; it’s because they understood what God was doing at the time. It’s Israel’s program.

"By the way, if they were racist, Jesus Christ told them, ‘Repentance and remission of sins should be preached among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' Was He a racist? According to Keller He is because He made the distinction.

"In Acts 2, Peter is filled with the Holy Spirit, speaks as the Spirit gave him utterance and three times says, ‘I’m only talking to Israel.' 'Ye men of Judea; I’m not talking to you Gentiles.’ Keller and these guys say he’s a racist. They say the reason they had to raise up the Apostle Paul and send him to the Gentiles was because these 'racist apostles' wouldn’t go! That is as close to blasphemous, nonsense malarkey . . .

"The point is this is dangerous nonsense. These people have political and religious power and position, but they don’t have an answer, and the reason they don’t is not because they don’t see the problem; they do. They’re trying to ‘bring in the kingdom.’

"They quote, 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven,' and they think that means political, economic and social and religious force and external things. They don’t understand what God’s doing today. When you don’t understand how to study your Bible rightly divided, you’re going to wind up in that kind of thing.

"We’re not bringing in the kingdom today and all the foolish talk about doing it only demonstrates that you’re impotent when it comes to facing real problems. The reason our culture today in America and in the West is the way it is is because, when the opportunity to understand that and grow in it was there, the church turned its back on it and 'light rejected becomes lightning.' "

On the stage of human history

Here's more from last weekend's Soldiers' Training conference in Chicago:

Philemon is really sort of a little vignette at the end of Paul’s epistles that shows what it’s like in a local church to have the life of Christ, the mind of Christ, functioning.

We’re not simply advocating for the truth; we’re designed to be the embodiment of that truth for it to live, putting it on display.

People are always talking about how “you need works.” Listen, you’re not going to commend yourself to God by your works. It’s not of works. We’re HIS workmanship.

It’s not going to be YOU; it’s going to be HIM working THROUGH you. That takes you out from under that, “I got to perform; I got to do, or my life is worthless.” The value is in what Christ is doing and who He is.

*****

The Catholics say the Protestant church is “just a glorified Bible study; they don’t have God in their midst because they don’t have the Eucharist.” We’ve got folks in our church who will tell you, “Yeah, that’s what they taught us.”

It’s, “We got God up here in the box, we get Him out, move Him around, we consecrate Him and there’s the living presence of Jesus Christ in our midst.”

When they say we’re just a glorified Bible study, I say, “Yeah, that’s right except we’ve got God in our midst IN US.” They’ve got a false god in a box that they bring out.

We’re the manifestation of the life of God on the stage of human history—if you’re going to have an influence on the culture, you’ve got to have that and that’s how you have it; through that influence in the spiritual battle that’s out there.

*****

You ever hear that song “He Lives”? It goes, “He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart!
You ask me how I know He lives? He lives within my heart.”

Talk to someone about their Bahai faith and they say, “I know it’s true because I can feel it in my heart.”

That’s just a totally subjective opinion that says it’s up to you. We changed that song lyric to, “He lives because the Bible tells me so.”

You know how I know He lives? That Book tells me so. That Book tells me there were eyewitnesses. One time there were 500 who saw Him. You don’t fool a bunch like that. You’ve got historically documented evidence because the Bible tells you.

It’s got nothing to do with my heart. There’s some days in my heart I don’t feel like He lives. You say, “Oh, Brother Rick.” I say, “Phooey, the same’s on you,” and you know that. But you know what. He lives. It doesn’t matter how you feel about it.

You have to take the objective truth of what God’s Word says and say, “That’s what’s true no matter how I feel.”

*****

Paul makes the point in Acts 17 that God’s "made of one blood all nations of men"; there’s one humanity. That’s a strike at the heart of the basis of Athenian philosophy, which says, “We’re special.” He’s digging them.

[24] God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands;
[25] Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;
[26] And hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation;

Then Paul says, “Even some of your guys understand that what I’m saying is true and what I’m saying is different from what you’re saying.”

[28] For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.

Go to verses 30-31: [30] And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent:
[31] Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Paul doesn’t get away from the resurrection. Some mocked him and some said, “Go away, go away; don’t bother us”: [32] And when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked: and others said, We will hear thee again of this matter.

My point is, at the heart of what Paul’s doing he’s trying to engage them about the truth and you can’t shy away from that. Paul never shied away from the clarity of the gospel.

*****

When Paul goes out on that first journey, he sets a pattern for his ministry and what he’s going to do, and the pattern he sets is one that he follows all the way through.

You’ll see it repeated over and over throughout the Book of Acts in various contexts. He had a goal: Establishing those local churches that can then be reproduced.

The whole strategy is very simply that he’s going to establish a multiplicity of local assemblies capable of reproducing themselves and preaching the gospel all through the regions where they are and then around the world. Here, there and everywhere.

Acts 14: [19] And there came thither certain Jews from Antioch and Iconium, who persuaded the people, and, having stoned Paul, drew him out of the city, supposing he had been dead.

If people want to stone you and they think you’re dead, chances are you’re probably dead. But whether he was or he wasn’t, the next verse says: [20] Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up, and came into the city: and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe.

When you get beat up, you don’t just jump up. So, there’s a miracle that takes place and Paul came into the city.

Wait a minute! He went right back to where they just tried to bump him off! That’s playing the man.

[21] And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch,
[22] Confirming the souls of the disciples, and exhorting them to continue in the faith, and that we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God.

We call that evangelism. Evangelism is a campaign that Paul has in his ministry that’s at the heart of what he does.

Now, he doesn’t go to the hinterlands; he goes to strategic population centers. In missionary efforts in the 1800s, when missions got going, the strategy was, “Go to the countryside, win some people and eventually penetrate the cities.” That’s the opposite of the way Paul did it.