'Thrills the joy chords within' . . .

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

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

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

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

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

Refrain

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

Refrain

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

Continue in prayer: 'Keep on keepin' on'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Unique aspects of Tri-unity access

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*****

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

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

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

Mountain cast into sea of chaos

Matthew 17: [18] And Jesus rebuked the devil; and he departed out of him: and the child was cured from that very hour.

[19] Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
[20] And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

"Removing a mountain is a cataclysmic event; it denotes the world being torn apart. It denotes chaos, an un-creation, and I use that word deliberately because the Lord uses that language in the Old Testament," says Alex Kurz.

"He says, 'Remove.' Why would you want to remove a mountain? I mean, that's a cataclysmic event. It's something abnormal that God doesn't intend to do but God is going to have to do it.

"There are seven prominent mountains in the Book of Matthew. Why does Matthew make a big deal about mountains? Because it's in keeping with the theme, which is the king and His kingdom.

"Numbers of times in the Bible mountains represent kingdoms, nations and peoples. If Jesus talks about a seed of mustard, He's already taught the disciples that the seed is the Word of God. Jesus uses language that is intended to provoke thinking and God does say things about mountains. There are good mountains and bad mountains in the Bible.

Psalms 48: [1] Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God, in the mountain of his holiness.

[2] Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth, is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King.

"That mountain is the city of God.

Verse 8: [8] As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of the LORD of hosts, in the city of our God: God will establish it for ever. Selah.

Verses 11-12: [11] Let mount Zion rejoice, let the daughters of Judah be glad, because of thy judgments.

[12] Walk about Zion, and go round about her: tell the towers thereof.

"The idea is you conduct measurements. Verse 13: [13] Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces; that ye may tell it to the generation following.

"God has a city that's called the mountain of the Lord, the mountain of the king. That's a good mountain.

"By the way, in Ezekiel 28, when Lucifer is that anointed cherub that covereth, it says that that creature was on the mountain of God and that was in Edom.

"Let me say this personally, I believe that mountain was on Planet Earth and God removed that mountain and relocated it to the third heaven. God removed it in an act of judgment.

"Jesus is telling these guys in Matthew, "You guys are going to have the authority to pronounce judgment that results in removing a mountain."

Isaiah 66:20: [20] And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the LORD out of all nations upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the LORD, as the children of Israel bring an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the LORD.

Jerusalem is described as the holy mountain. 

"In Daniel 2 we're familiar with Daniel's interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and in this dream there is this stone cut without hands that is going to destroy all of the Gentile systems of governance on earth.

"Daniel 2 describes how God is going to destroy and break in pieces: [44] And in the days of these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed: and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand for ever.

[45] Forasmuch as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the brass, the clay, the silver, and the gold; the great God hath made known to the king what shall come to pass hereafter: and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure.
[46] Then the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshipped Daniel, and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odours unto him.

"There's a good mountain in Daniel 9:16: [16] O Lord, according to all thy righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and thy fury be turned away from thy city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain: because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.

"There's a bad mountain in Jeremiah 51 where God's judgment is being pronounced on Babylon: [24] And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD.

[25] Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the LORD, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.
[26] And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.

"Does that sound like He's removing a mountain? He's going to roll the rocks. The Lord, in judgment, is going to uproot this system. The mountain represents the Babylonian system which is a shadow-type and it prefigures the ultimate battle in the Book of Revelation.

Revelation 17: [9] And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

[10] And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.
[11] And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.
[12] And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.
[13] These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

"The five fallen would be Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Media-Persia and Greece. That represents the five empires historically who exercised dominion over God's people, the nation of Israel. They're described as five mountains.

"There's a reason why God is threatening the destruction of mountains, but Jesus is telling the disciples, "You guys are going to have the authority to do this."

"Remember, the Lord Jesus is being rejected and He's now concentrating on tribulation events, Second Coming events, and He's ultimately going to provide some information regarding His righteous rule on earth.

"These disciples are going to participate in the dismantling, in the shake-up of the existing world kingdoms when the Lord Jesus returns with a rod of iron. He's trying to tell these guys they are one day going to remove mountains. They're going to dismantle these Gentile systems of governance, and in its place will be the Lord's kingdom."

Jeremiah 4: [23] I beheld the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light.

[24] I beheld the mountains, and, lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.

“The language here, which is describing the future, is the same kind of language from Genesis 1.

“I personally believe it’s the language of judgment. All we know is the day is coming where the mountains are going to tremble and the hills are going to be moved.

“Again, that’s characteristic of the undoing of something. All of this is the result of God’s judgment to be poured out on the earth.

Matthew 21: [21] Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

“When Jesus says, ‘You can remove a mountain,’ He then says you can cast it into the sea. The sea, in light of what God says is going to happen in the future--there is without question something that we would call ‘weather cosmicity’, the sea of chaos.

“There is a sea in the universe where the Leviathan, where the serpent abides. When Jesus says, ‘We’re going to dismantle these governments and you guys can cast it into the sea,’ the sea also represents the underworld.

“Jonah describes this sea. The Lord Jesus describes it in Psalms 69. We know that this chaotic sea contains what we would call the underworld.

“Remember when the Lord split the Red Sea open and the earth swallowed up the Egyptian armies? Their bodies were on the shoreline, floating and bobbing, but the verse says they were swallowed up and they descended into the pit. So there’s that type of sea where that creature abides.

Luke 17: [6] And the Lord said, If ye had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say unto this sycamine tree, Be thou plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it should obey you.

“When the Lord mentions the sycamine tree, that’s an interesting one. He says, ‘You can tell that sycamine tree to be removed and you can plant it in the underworld.’ The sycamine tree represents the apostate nation of Israel. The fig tree, of course, represents Israel’s religious system.

“The sycamine tree is large; it grows in the desert and it produces figs. The problem is they are inedible. Jesus singles out the sycamine tree because it’s one of the largest trees that dwells in the desert area, but the fruit is so bitter it’s worthless.

“The nation of Israel has become bitter, worthless, fruitless. So the day’s going to come where the apostate nation is going to be removed and they’re going to be planted in the sea, representing the underworld.”

Not just set free but MADE free

The burning passion that sin ignites is never to be satisfied, but Jesus Christ takes all of that--my guilt, my failure--so that I might be made the righteousness of God. That's the great exchange.

I get His righteousness, His acceptance before God and I'm in the Beloved. I be loved and I be loved because He made me so, and on my worst day or on my best day, when I'm not lovable in myself, or when I thought I was and "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," I have a real acceptance, explains Richard Jordan.

To be guilty is one thing, but not to settle the issue . . . Psychology can't do that. They pull it out, you know, and wear it as a medal around your chest: "I confess my sin." It doesn't resolve guilt; it's still there, but Jesus paid it all. He took care of it and gave me His righteousness.

You get a sense of being trapped by your sins; enslaved by them, hemmed in. But in Ephesians 1:7 he says, [7] In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace.

That word "redemption" means to pay the price and set it free. It's really freedom. You're liberated from the control of sin. It means you don't have to sin anymore. You don't have to have that irritable spirit, that nasty disposition, that lustful eye, you know, envious, jealous. . . 

You don't have to do that; you're free in Christ from all of those entanglements. Christ died to set you free. He died to MAKE your free.

There's a great song Down South we used to sing: "He set me free, He set me free, He broke the bonds of prison for me."

But somebody pointed out to me one time that the Bible doesn't say that. It says He MADE me free. He made me a free person. He didn't just take me and set me free; He completely transformed me into someone who's free.

Romans 6: [17] But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. [18] Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.

That's what redemption is. Look, be strong in THESE things! Don't try to go out and be strong in, "I gave money to the church, I passed out tracts." Don't try to be strong in what you do because it always comes up short--"cut off my legs and call me Shorty."

What He did always answers it. He says in verse 7 we have "forgiveness according to the riches of his grace." Say what you will, sin haunts us. We need peace. The anger, the hurt that comes from sin. The hurt that comes from hurting others and be hurt by it.

To know what it is to be forgiven allows you to forgive. You'll never be able to forgive until you understand how it is to be forgiven. The entanglements of sin.

He says, "I give you freedom." The word "forgive" means to send it away. But where do you send it? The only place you can send it where it's dealt with completely is the Cross.

You send it into the vacuum of your memory, but you know what happens? It belches back up at inconvenient times and it haunts you and you wind up hearing its footsteps. He says, "I can show you a way to peace," because that's what we want.

You don't have to be angry anymore, at war with the world, or your neighbor, or your family, or yourself. He paid the penalty. The war's over and we have peace with God and when you have peace with God you can have peace with everyone else through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Read it to believe it--and see it work

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.” – James Baldwin

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest (people) of the past centuries.” – Descartes

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” ― Henry David Thoreau

“Once you’ve read a book you care about, some part of it is always with you.” — Louis L’Amour

“If you would tell me the heart of a man, tell me not what he reads, but what he rereads.”― Francois Mauriac

“Reading is a conversation. All books talk. But a good book listens as well.”— Mark Haddon

“Some books should be tasted, some devoured, but only a few should be chewed and digested thoroughly.” — Sir Francis Bacon

“Sometimes, you read a book and it fills you with this weird evangelical zeal, and you become convinced that the shattered world will never be put back together unless and until all living humans read the book.” ― John Green

“And I wept much, because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book, neither to look thereon.”--Revelation 5:4

*****

In his Wednesday night study my pastor really honed in on the fact that Believers must READ God's Word. It's not the same at all to listen to God's Word being preached or, of course, to read commentaries or other material giving expository writings about what the Word says.

The first occurrence of the word “read” in the King James Bible, where somebody is physically reading the word, is in Exodus 24:7: “And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.”

Moses writes the words down in a book obviously. Exodus 24:8: [8] And Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, Behold the blood of the covenant, which the LORD hath made with you concerning all these words.

He sprinkles the book, but before he does, he READS the w-o-r-d-s. You see, it’s important in the Bible that you read the Bible.

When Moses describes to Israel about what they’re to do when they enter into the "land of promise," one of the first things he tells them (Deuteronomy 17) is that when the king "sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

[19] And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them."

*****

If you want God’s Word, the truth of who you are in Jesus Christ, the life of Christ, to work in you, you need to get into READING, says Richard Jordan.

If you want who God has made you—He called Israel to be somebody and if that was to work in them, they had to get those w-o-r-d-s, read them all the days of their life so those words would WORK in them.

You don’t operate simply on your memory. You don’t operate on what you heard a teacher or preacher say. You sit and continuously, day after day, read the words yourself.

When Moses dies and Joshua takes his place of leadership, God advises, "Be strong and of good courage." He says in Joshua 1:8, "This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shalt meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success."

You see, they’re to take that book, they’re to read it and meditate on it. They’re to think about it and fill their mind with it.

Joshua 8:34 says, "And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and cursings, according to all that is written in the book of the law."

Do you see how when they’re going to be led into blessing--led into the land--and corrected for their misbehavior, they’re going to look at verses in their Bible and read them? It’s that important, folks!

By the way, this BOOK that Moses starts writing; it just keeps growing. He keeps adding to it. God is writing His Word, growing His Word, adding Scripture to it.

Joshua 24:26 says, "And Joshua wrote these words in the book of the law of God, and took a great stone, and set it up there under an oak, that was by the sanctuary of the LORD."

The verses are showing you there’s this BOOK and they’re reading it, and the Book is why it’s important. Now that’s why there’s a Book, by the way!

The Lord says in Isaiah 30:8, "Now go, write it before them in a table, and note it in a book, that it may be for the time to come for ever and ever."

*****

The reason the emphasis is so much on that Book, and reading the Book, is because God designed His people to be People of a Book; of a written record of His Word.

I remember the first time I read through the Koran, and I had asked my neighbor to "get me a copy of the Koran that you guys use." I had gone and gotten the one that Arthur Arberry did and I didn’t know whether it was right or not. If you get a translation of somebody’s scripture you want to find the one that the people doing it want.

I told myself, "I’m going to read this through at least 6-8 times so I have a little information in my head about what’s in it." Thomas Carlyle said reading the Koran was the most vain effort there is to read and he was right. It’s a confusing kind of thing.

Read it 4-5 times and you begin to see there really is no pattern to it, but I was struck by how, over and over, they refer to Christians and Jews as "The People of the Book."

That’s who we are. God wrote a Book. Now, that’s why READING it is important, because the reason you’re reading is you’re reading the Book that contains the w-o-r-d-s of God.

God didn’t say to listen to DVDs and CDs; He said, "Read the Book."

Now there’s a listening and hearing issue too, but it starts with the reading. Why does Isaiah 30:8 say to "note it in a book"? "That it may be for the time to come for ever and ever." 

Notice they are to take the word God gave them (through the prophet) and write it in a book so it can be preserved for the future.

*****

In theological circles, there’s a great discussion about inspiration. II Peter 1:20-21 says, "Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

[21] For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost."

Notice it didn’t say they wrote as they were moved. It said they SPAKE. See that? Romans 16:22 reveals, "I Tertius, who wrote this epistle, salute you in the Lord."

Wait a minute, I thought Paul wrote Romans?! I thought Paul said, "Read what I write and you’ll get understanding"? Does that mean Romans doesn’t fit if this dude Tertius wrote it? What’s the deal there?

Paul didn’t write most of his epistles. In Galatians 6, he writes, "Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand."

It’s only six chapters. But evidently he had some problems with his eyes and he didn’t actually do the penning. He spoke, and as he dictated, Tertius wrote it down.

But the verse says "holy men of God SPAKE as they were moved." So where was the inspiration? In spirit, in breathing; that’s talking. Then they record in written fashion the w-o-r-d-s. You know what the recording is? That’s preservation of what’s spoken. There’s inspiration and preservation in one verse.

It’s fascinating that you take the average doctrinal statement of the average church, and the average Christian institution since the turn of the 20^th Century, and they talk about the Bible. They say, "We believe the Bible was given by inspiration of God."

And they talk about verbal, planarian inspiration and dynamics in the original autographs. You know what the problem with that is? You’ve never seen an original autograph. You’ve never seen an original copy. The book Paul wrote to the Ephesians, you never saw the original. Most people didn’t. What did they see? Copies.

Well, if it was only inspired in the original, what have you got now? By their definition, you have an uninspired bible. You say, "Well, that’s not good."

Now when you go out and raise that question, these people blow their stack at you and they say, "Well, you’re one of those ‘King James Only’ people."

The point is God wrote His Word, He spake it and it was written down, and was designed to be preserved. How long did Isaiah 30:8 say it was meant for? Why did he say to go write it down? So it could be preserved for the next generation and the next generation.

It’s still as much His Word after it’s written down as it was when it came out of Paul’s mouth. The scholars say Tertius is Paul’s ‘amanuensis.’ I love that title. That’s just means it’s his secretary. That’s a just a big fancy definition for "he’s taking dictation." You can’t charge somebody $50,000 for an education if you don’t teach them big words.

What Tertius is doing is preserving for you the inspired w-o-r-d-s God gave through Paul. By the way, look at Romans 16:26: "But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith."

If God’s Word is to be made known to all nations, what would that require? It’s going to require that it be translated. You remember that verse in Zechariah 8 where he says that "ten men shall take hold out of ALL languages of the nations"?

God knows there’s all these different languages and if His Word is designed to be made known to all nations, He doesn’t tell all nations, "Come learn this language." He says, "Take my Word and put it into the languages of the nations."

If you go back and study doctrinal statements before the turn of the 20^th Century, you know what you find they say? They don’t say God’s Word is found in the originals only. They say God’s Word was found in the originals and then preserved through history, designed to be translated into the languages of the nations.

In fact, the Westminster Confession, the great old confession that everybody says is supposed to be the standard of everything, says that His Word is designed to be preserved PURE through all generations. God is going to preserve His word through history in written form, through copies, translating. It’s designed so it can be permanent and precise.

Riches more precious than gold

(new article tomorrow)

In dictionaries that tell you what names mean, one of the meanings of Ephesians is "desirable ones." The big thrust of Ephesians is being in Christ and what it means to be in Christ.

Jordan explains, "The Father said about Christ in Matthew 3, 'This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased,' and where am I? I'm in Him. That gives me some assurance about how the Father thinks about me. He sees me IN the merits, IN the person, IN the identity of the one who is well-pleasing to Him. Not in me; not in myself. Not in who I am. The issue is who He is.

"When Paul in Ephesians talks about 'to the saints and the faithful,' it isn't just that they are saved; it's that they've come along in the edification process to the place where they are fully functioning as Believers. They've grown up in Him. They are living in the fullness of the Christian life; in the maturity God's given them in Christ.

"Paul spent three exhausting years of ministry in Ephesus proclaiming the gospel and doing the work of the ministry. He struggled and pleaded with those who opposed him. There was the great religious center to the queen of heaven at Ephesus and for three years he shed tears over the souls of the Ephesians. He says that in Acts 20, 'I wept over you for three years.'

"The end result was a body of Believers who he could call, not just the saints, but faithful in Christ Jesus. Fully functioning and you see it in chapter 1. You get on down and see there's people in Ephesus he's writing to where he didn't even know them. He just heard of their faith.

"After he left there some folks got saved that weren't saved under him. He didn't lead them to Christ. The saints that he left there kept doing the work of the ministry. You want to see one of the most explosive ministries in the Bible go back and read Acts 19. He just blew the whole territory up with the gospel. And when he left, he left saints that were carrying on with the work. They didn't need him there stroking them, pushing them forward.

*****

"The will of God is not what you're doing; the will of God is what He's doing. If you just get that shift in your mind . . . if you want to do the will of God, find out what He's doing and let Him will and do that in you and you'll be doing the will of God.

"If you learn to think like God thinks, when you go through the details in your life, you'll be able to think about them the way God thinks about them. And if you think about them the way God thinks about them, what will you do? Won't you do what God thinks? You will be doing the will of God in those circumstances.

"God wants you choosing the thing of greatest value. You've got everything off the stage of your life that shouldn't be there. Everything God says don't have in your life, you've put away. You've denied ungodliness and worldly lust. You took it out of the way.

"All the satanic policy of evil, all the thinking of the Adversary, you took out of your life. You took out the worldly lusts, the course of this world. You see it and you say, 'That right there doesn't belong in my life. Out!' Why? 'It's a waste of my time! I could put something else there!'

"I take out of my life all the things God says don't put there and I begin to put in their place the things God says to put there. As I begin to add those things into my life--love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness--I live soberly, righteously and godly. I think soberly; I think in the reality of what God says.

"Righteously means I live with other people in that right activity. Godly. I live toward the Lord the way He says. The identity He gives me. I begin to put that into my life. As I do that, you know what that is? That's doing the will of God.

"I know who I am; I know what my job is. I'm the vessel through whom He lives. I belong to Jesus Christ. That's who I'm doing this for. I'm not doing it for the praise of men; I'm doing it because of Him. It's God's will that I'm a part of. I'm down here having what God's doing living in me. And it's God who wills and does His good pleasure as I take His Word and let it be my thinking; my life.

"God has this great cosmic plan to make everything in the universe center in His Son. That's what I'm about. That's what my life's about. I know who I am. I know what I'm doing. I know who I'm doing it for. And I know what the authority is. I'm a part of this great thing God's doing today.

"Paul writes in Ephesians 3, [9] And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things by Jesus Christ:

[10] To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
[11] According to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord:

"God said, 'I've got this plan, I planned it before the foundation of the world. I'm working it out. It's all focused in my Son.' And right now--not in eternity, not in the ages to come, not after the Rapture--under the principalities and powers in heavenly places, we've got the privilege of manifesting that wisdom!

"That's what God's doing, so my life right now is not about the little peevish stuff. I mean, are you like Paul today? Are you in prison? Maybe your prison is illness. Maybe you've got some infirmities. Maybe your prison is persecution. Maybe there's some assaults laid upon you. Maybe your prison is family and friends. Maybe your prison is a husband or a wife. Maybe it's work; maybe it's your boss. Maybe your prison is finances, afraid the phone is going to ring because it's a bill collector.

"Maybe your prison is just your own restlessness of heart and spirit. You look around and you feel like, 'I ought to have something I don't have; others have it and I need it; I want it.' That discontent.

"Maybe your prison is just an angry spirit; resentment about something that's been done to you in the past. Maybe your prison is just a sense of a total lack of well-being. I was at the doctor last week and he asked, 'How is your sense of well-being?' I thought, 'What?! I want to know how my heart's beating.'' But that's a good question.

"Paul was in prison when he wrote these verses and in prison he could say, 'I know who I am and I know what I'm doing, and I know who I'm doing it for, and I know the assignment that I'm on. It's the assignment of what God's doing. I'm a part of what God's doing! And my circumstances aren't where I determine who I am, who I belong to or what my job is. I'm not looking out here at how I feel about my circumstances; I'm looking to one thing, and that's who God has made me in Christ Jesus.'

"Now, all of that is not cliches and euphemisms to Paul. They're going to be 150 more verses where he gives you details about what that's going to mean. This is substantive reality about what God's doing and I've got this comprehension of this grand, cosmic design God has in His Son and He's made me a part of it.

"Paul says in Ephesians 1, [17] That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:

[18] The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,

[19] And what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, 

"Never come to the place where you think that your progress in the Christian life is going to be enhanced by your performance. It's enhanced by understanding who Christ is. But when you understand who He is and who He's made you, you know what? 'Christ in you the hope of glory' begins to live out through you."

Regarding Ephesians 3:8, Fannie Crosby wrote this classic song:

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ,
Wealth that can never be told!
Riches exhaustless of mercy and grace,
Precious, more precious than gold!

(Chorus)
Precious, more precious,
Wealth that can never be told!
Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Precious, more precious than gold.

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Who shall their greatness declare?
Jewels whose luster our lives may adorn,
Pearls that the poorest may wear!

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Freely, how freely they flow,
Making the souls of the faithful and true
Happy wherever they go!

Oh, the unsearchable riches of Christ!
Who would not gladly endure
Trials, afflictions, and crosses on earth,
Riches like these to secure!

Get over yourself to finish the deal

Why do we fear? Because we have this idea that our identity and our future resides in our own abilities, skills, qualifications, mental/physical resources.

It’s not what you do; it’s what He did that makes you valuable. It’s not what you accomplish; it’s what HE’S accomplished that gives you worth and meaning. Because He’s given you HIS value.

At the most basic level, sin is a refusal to trust God to give you what you’re looking for in Christ. Fear really is unbelief.

*****

If you can get that monkey off your back that you've got to be "good enough" to measure up and belong and have value, then you’re FREE to let His life produce His work in and through you. As soon as you do that, there’s that humbling of your mind; that "lowliness of mind."

Listen, being "capable" doesn’t depend on you. Would you relax and realize that? Paul says, "You can do nothing against the truth but for the truth."

In Acts 20, when Paul talks to these elders and bishops at Ephesus--when he called them together and met with them at Miletus--he says about his manner with them, "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears, and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews."

Notice he says, "Serving the Lord with all humility of mind." That’s the inside attitude he had: "It’s not about me; it’s not about me being right. I don’t have to defend myself. I don’t have to make it look like I’m okay and I’m qualified," but "with many tears, and temptations . . . " He was willing to appear weak so that the power of Christ might be the real issue.