Writing 'I-chabod' and they're gone

(will have new article later today, as in before midnight for certain)

Hosea 13:16 says, “Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.”

“You read that and you go, ‘Whew.' That’s a demonstration of man’s inhumanity to man. That’s what war’s about. That’s how bad it’s going to get for Israel," says Richard Jordan.

“Hosea 10:15 says, ‘So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.’

“In one morning the nation is just going to be destroyed and be gone!”

“Spiritual corruption is at the heart of the destruction of the national life of Israel. That’s why Hosea started out talking about how they’re an ‘empty vine.’

“I would say to you that every state has within it the seeds of its own destruction, because the old sin nature of man makes it so that every system of government that’s set up will eventually force the people under its authority to obey and pay for, through confiscation of taxes, unjust laws.

“That moral corruption that comes because we’re sinners results in the destruction of a state. You’re seeing it happen in our nation right now. And we are at that place in our nation where Israel was in Hosea 10, where it’s irretrievable as far as going back to where we once were. The cycle has to see itself through.

“I’ve said to you, Christianity for most of the last 2,000 years has been an underground religion. Grace Believers have always been an underground movement. Bible-believing people like us have always been under the radar.

*****

I Samuel 13 says, [6] When the men of Israel saw that they were in a strait, (for the people were distressed,) then the people did hide themselves in caves, and in thickets, and in rocks, and in high places, and in pits.
[7] And some of the Hebrews went over Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead. As for Saul, he was yet in Gilgal, and all the people followed him trembling.
[8] And he tarried seven days, according to the set time that Samuel had appointed: but Samuel came not to Gilgal; and the people were scattered from him.
[9] And Saul said, Bring hither a burnt offering to me, and peace offerings. And he offered the burnt offering.
[10] And it came to pass, that as soon as he had made an end of offering the burnt offering, behold, Samuel came; and Saul went out to meet him, that he might salute him.

“Samuel showed up right on time on the seventh day just like he’s supposed to, but Saul had gone out and usurped the priest office. The result of that was that God rejected Saul and he lost the kingdom.

“That’s exactly what the Antichrist is going to do. He’s going to sit in the temple showing himself that he is God.

“All that Baal worship, religious apostasy and corrupting of the system goes all the way back to the establishing of the nation; the first king in Israel.

“So when Hosea talks about the iniquity in Gilead and the wickedness in Gilgal and so forth, and there’s no king, there’s nothing that’s going to help them in that apostate system.

“Hosea 10 says they’d made a covenant with the Assyrian (of which the Antichrist will be). What you’re going to notice as you go down through this passage is that in the beginning here, when that first portion of the captivity is coming upon Israel, the beginning of the captivity mirrors the ending of the captivity.

“The last stage of the captivity is that 70^th week of Daniel. It is mirrored by the first stage; the initial ‘going in.’ And what you see constantly in the taking of Israel is little flash-forwards, as it were, into what’s going to happen in the tribulation.

“The history Hosea is writing is really a dress rehearsal of the tribulation period and this covenant is one of those things.

*****

The famous passage in Isaiah 28 says, [14] Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem.
[15] Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves.”

“They thought that covenant they made with the Assyrian was going to deliver them from captivity and destruction, but God says, 'What you’ve done is you’ve made a covenant with death and with hell are we at agreement.' They’re a part of the satanic program.

“Reading that, immediately you think of Revelation 6, if you’re familiar with it, because that rider on that fourth horse is death and hell follows him. Those four horsemen in Revelation 6 represent four different views of the Antichrist; four different roles the Antichrist is going to play.

“Verses 16-17 says, [16] Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.
[17] Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.’

“That’s an immediate prophecy about the Assyrian captivity. Prophetically it’s talking about the Antichrist.

“Isaiah 10:5 says, ‘O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.’

“That Assyrian taking them into captivity is a picture and a type and a dress rehearsal of the Antichrist, who also is the Assyrian in Scripture.

“You see, it says in Daniel 9 that after the 69^th week, ‘Messiah’s cut off but not for himself.’ There’s the crucifixion. At the end of those 69 weeks, Messiah’s crucified, the city of Jerusalem is destroyed and the prince that shall come does that. He makes a covenant with Israel for one week. In the midst of that 70^th week, he breaks the covenant.

“They thought they had a covenant that was going to protect them. They made a covenant with the one who was ultimately going to be the one who destroyed them.

*****

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

“He’s going to come in as a peacemaker and take the kingdom by buttering up Israel and making them think he loves them and that he’s going to be their Messiah.

“The passage goes on, ‘And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant.’

“The idea there is they’ve gone out and sought to have the Assyrian deliver them and it isn’t going to work.

*****

“Hosea 10:5 says, ‘The inhabitants of Samaria shall fear because of the calves of Beth-aven: for the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.’

“Chapter 8:5 says, ‘Thy calf, O Samaria, hath cast thee off; mine anger is kindled against them: how long will it be ere they attain to innocency?’

“The calf of Samaria started back in Exodus 32 with the golden calf. In II Kings 8, Jeroboam sets up the golden calf and said, ‘These be thy gods that brought thee out of Egypt.’ It was the main idol of Baal worship.

“Chapter 13:2 says, ‘And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.’

“So you’ve got this idol-worshipping program going on and it’s going on here in Hosea 10 in Beth-aven.

“When you read commentaries, the (scholars) read that word Beth-aven and they start looking for it and there’s no place that they know of that’s called Beth-aven.

“Hosea 10: 8 says, ‘The high places also of Aven, the sin of Israel, shall be destroyed: the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.’

“That term ‘aven’; the word itself means emptiness, vanity, wickedness. Beth- (the house) aven (of the sin of Israel). The calves really were at Bethel, but Bethel, ‘the house of God,’ has now become Beth-aven, the house of wickedness.

“Verse 15 says, ‘So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.’

“In other words, the same place where Jacob spent the night, saw the ladder and so forth and got up the next morning and said, ‘This is the house of God; this is the gate of heaven,’ has been corrupted into the very seat of the satanic religion. That’s how thoroughly Israel had been corrupted spiritually.

“Remember, verse 5 says ‘the people thereof shall mourn over it, and the priests thereof that rejoiced on it, for the glory thereof, because it is departed from it.’ They’re going to lose it all. It’s going to be wiped out. They see it’s going to be a great loss to them.

“Notice that when it says ‘the priests thereof rejoiced,’ it’s in the past tense. They used to rejoice in it because it made them rich; it made them powerful. But now it’s gone. And the people are going to mourn because of that. When He says ‘for the glory thereof,’ that’s sarcasm. It didn’t have any godly glory but it had a man-made glory.

“God took the glory off of Israel and wrote ‘I-chabod’ over the nation. He’s going to take the false glory that the priests and the people attributed to Beth-aven and He’s going to write ‘I-chabod’ over that, too, and they’re going to be gone.

“Verse 6 says, ‘It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.’ Even the calves are going to be carried away to the Assyrian. They’re going to be given to King Jareb.

*****

“Back in chapter 5:13, we read about when Ephraim saw his sickness. They were trying to get help from the Assyrian. They made a covenant with the Assyrian that he would deliver them and keep them safe, and it’s going to wind up he’s going to betray them--coming in and taking them--and all that stuff is going to be carried off as a present to him to make him wealthy. That’s exactly what the Antichrist is going to do with them.

“You see, when Israel in the Tribulation would read this, they think going to the Assyrian is a good thing and Hosea’s telling them, ‘Uh-huh, he’s deceiving you.’

“Verse 6 says, ‘It shall be also carried unto Assyria for a present to king Jareb: Ephraim shall receive shame, and Israel shall be ashamed of his own counsel.’

“It’s important to notice, where did it come from? Where does the destruction come from? It comes from them following their own way. It comes from rejecting God’s Word and walking in their own way.

“II Kings 17:9 says, ‘And the children of Israel did secretly those things that were not right against the LORD their God, and they built them high places in all their cities, from the tower of the watchmen to the fenced city.’

“I mean, they just sunk down into the lowest pits of this stuff. Why did the judgment come? They were going to do what they wanted to do, God’s Word be hanged.

*****

“Years ago, I sat with a young couple and the wife had decided to leave the marriage, and I’m sitting with them in the living room and we were talking a little bit when she finally looked at me and said, ‘I don’t care what you say, my parents say or what God says, I’m through.’

“Well, I just closed my Bible and got up and grabbed my hat and left. What else are you going to do? Well, that’s what these people have done. They said, ‘We don’t care what you say, God says or anybody else says, we’re going to follow our own counsel. We’re going to say these false gods are true and we’re going to worship them.’

"He says in Hosea 6:10 that Israel’s going to be ashamed. They’re going to be carried off into captivity and there’s going to be national humiliation because they followed their own counsel. They’re going to do it their own way.

“Proverbs 13:13 warns about this kind of conduct: ‘Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.’

“National destruction comes when you despise the Word of the Creator. They threw the Bible out of their national life and the result was that in came error, the lie, corrupted them and made their future nothing but absolute complete destruction.

“You say, ‘Why would they do that?!’ Well, their heart was the problem. In Romans 10:3, Paul says that, ‘For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.’

“Going about to establish your own righteousness is another way of saying pride. What does Proverbs 13:10 say? ‘Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom.’

*****

“Hosea 10:7 says, ‘As for Samaria, her king is cut off as the foam upon the water.’ That verse gives the new bibles a real problem. It’s strange. Isaiah 57 says ‘the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt.’

“There’s no peace for the wicked. They’re like the troubled sea that’s always just spitting. I was raised on the Gulf Coast. One of the things you know after a storm, or after a heavy sea, is there’s always foam. Those white caps are caused by air that gets in the water and it will leave foam on the surface.

“When He says it’s like foam on the water, you just squish foam down. It’s got no substance to it. It isn’t hard to get rid of it. It’s just quickly gone, and they’re going to be cut off and it’s not going to be any problem to destroy them.

“Hosea says ‘in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.’ It’s not going to be any big to-do to get it done; it’ll just be ‘pfwhut.’ All this stuff they’ve got going on in their plans of resistance has no substance to it at all.

“In Hosea 10:8, when it says ‘the thorn and the thistle shall come up on their altars,’ that phraseology occurs only one other time that I’m aware of and it's in Genesis 3:18 when God describes how the earth is going to bring the thorns and thistles out. It’s talking about the curse. What it’s going to take is their altars are going to be left idle and just grown up.

*****

“When I was in college in the 1960s, there was a big movement called the ‘God is Dead Movement.’ Isn’t there a movie out right now called ‘God is Not Dead’? Well, there used to be a theological movement that a guy down in Georgia headed called thanatology.

“ ‘Thanos’ is a Greek word for death and theology is the study of God. It was the study of the death of God and the idea was God’s dead, He’s useless like an appendix you don’t need any more and forget about it.

“I once knew a Christian cartoonist who drew the most fascinating cartoon. It was two guys going out to the cemetery and digging a grave and burying God in the grave. In the first panel you see two guys and they’re walking with their shovels, leaving the cemetery, and there’s a headstone that says, ‘God is Dead.’

“The next panel you see grass begin to grow. In the third panel the grass grew up so high all you could read was ‘God is.’

“I thought, ‘That’s it!’ That’s in essence what He’s saying there: ‘The thorn and thistle shall come up on their altars; and they shall say to the mountains, Cover us; and to the hills, Fall on us.’

“All that they were trusting in--Creation’s just going to take it back over, it’s going to be idle and of no value and their going to wind up saying to the mountains, ‘Fall on us.’

“Now you’re in the Tribulation again because in Luke 23:3 Jesus says they’re going to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us.’ In Revelation 6:16, in that six seal, the kings of the earth and the rich men cry to the mountains, ‘Fall on us and save us from the face of him that sits on the throne.’

“What they’re trying to do is hide from God’s wrath. But that’s another one of these kind of little things that just shoots you over there into the Tribulation so you kind of know the context.

*****

“Hosea 10:9 says, ‘O Israel, thou hast sinned from the days of Gibeah: there they stood: the battle in Gibeah against the children of iniquity did not overtake them.’

“That’s Judges 6, 19 and 20 where all that terrible corruption took place in Israel and the nation was just ‘liking it so.’

“The sin that began back there in the Book of Judges is still going on in Israel now. It’s never been dealt with. That mixed multitude, that apostate crowd out there, is still there! Well, God’s going to take care of it.

“The next verse says, ‘It is in my desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.’

“God’s determination is He’s going to bring that Fifth Course of Judgment. Now, that verse right there helps you understand something about what’s going on in Leviticus 26.

*****

“The judgments in Leviticus 26 are identified there in Hosea 10:10 as ‘chastenings.’ If you have a Scofield Bible, you’ll see he puts ‘warnings of chastening’ as a paragraph heading over verse 14. Above verse 16 he has the heading, ‘First chastisement,’ then in verse 18, ‘Second chastisement.’

“Scofield knew to identify these things as chastisements, and there are five cycles, or I call them ‘courses’ because they’re meant to be remedial. They’re meant to be not just punishments but learning experiences.

Chastising in the Bible is designed to teach through discipline. It’s different than punishment. Leviticus 26: 23 says, ‘And if ye will not be reformed by me by these things, but will walk contrary unto me.’

“Notice the purpose of the thing was to reform them. The chastisements were designed to teach Israel and bring them back where they ought to be, not just to destroy them or punish them in the sense of getting even with them.

“Hebrews 12:5, talking about the time period he’s going to be chastising Israel, says, ‘And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.’

“You see how He defines that word ‘chastening’ in verse 9 as ‘corrected’? Then He goes back to the word ‘chastening’ in verse 10. The idea is that course of punishment on Israel is a corrective discipline.

“Now, He told them that back in Hosea 7:12. ‘I’m going to chasten them just like I said I would in Leviticus 26.’ Hosea is helping you define what’s going on in Leviticus 26 as chastisements. Every time He put one on them, He says, ‘If you won’t hearken for that one, I’m gonna give you some more!’

“The purpose was, ‘Hearken! Listen! Be reformed! Turn around! Repent!’ Now in Hosea 10, they haven’t done that and they face the Fifth Course, which is national deportation.

*****

“God says in Hosea 10:10, ‘It is in my desire that I should chastise them; and the people shall be gathered against them, when they shall bind themselves in their two furrows.’ Those furrows back in verse 4 are furrows filled with hemlock. We read in chapter 12 that those furrows are filled with altars where they’re making sacrifices to Baal.

“Notice when He says ‘they shall bind themselves in their two furrows,’ the southern kingdom is corrupted too. He’s going to deal with the northern kingdom first, as an example, but both kingdoms are in a mess.

“Verse 11 is well-stated: ‘And Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught, and loveth to tread out the corn; but I passed over upon her fair neck: I will make Ephraim to ride; Judah shall plow, and Jacob shall break his clods.’

 “Now, she’s taught wrong; she’s been taught a lie. When it says she ‘loveth to tread out the corn,’ remember the passage in I Corinthians 9:9: ‘For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen?’

“When they tread out the corn, they get to eat it. She doesn’t love working; she loves eating. She loved the benefits that she had.

“Well, if you go to Micah 3, you’ll see the prophets in Israel were called 'hirelings.' They were doing it for the money. We saw that earlier where they say, ‘Just give me, give me, give me.’

“So He says ‘Ephraim is as an heifer that is taught,’ and that ‘I passed upon her fair neck.' He’s going to put a yoke on her! Now when He says He’s going to make Ephraim to ride, it means somebody’s going to ride on Ephraim. He’s going to put a harness on Ephraim and Ephraim is going to be carried away into captivity and that Assyrian’s going to control them.

“If you look back at Jeremiah 31, they’re going to be carried away into satanic captivity and he’s going to ride them. The one they thought was going to deliver them is really going to be the one who’s going to control them and run them and ride them into the ground.

"Jeremiah 31:11 says, ‘For the LORD hath redeemed Jacob, and ransomed him from the hand of him that was stronger than he.’ Israel was in captivity in the clutches of someone who was stronger than them and they couldn’t get loose.

“Listen, this is God’s chosen nation. They were to be the head of the nations. And He’s making them the tail!

*****

“In Hosea 10: 12, though, comes mercy: ‘Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the LORD, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.’

“Right in the middle of all this darkness is hope.  Now you’re back in Hosea 6: 1-3: ‘He’s going to come revive us. There’s hope!’ When is the hope? When He comes. In the middle of all that darkness there He is as light, but you’re going to have to hang on because it ain’t coming soon.

“That’s why Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness.’ You see, there had to be a heart attitude to start with to turn this thing around.

“Verse 13 says, ‘Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.’

“That’s that refuge of lies in that covenant back in verse 4. Verse 14 says, ‘Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Beth-arbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.’

“That word ‘arbel’ means to be ambushed by God. He’s literally turned the wickedness that’s up in that northern kingdom. It’s the thing that’s going to cause God to destroy them in the day of battle.”

Greedy dogs

(new article this evening)

II Peter 2 begins, [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.

He’s so familiar with it and it’s so closely associated with what he thinks is in the Bible that he won’t hear anything; that’s why they’re false teachers, explains Richard Jordan. These guys, in Israel’s situation, are going to be professing Israel, but they’re apostate Israel and the truth of God is going to be evil spoken of.

That word feign, false, is an artificial kind of word that is molded. We use the word plastic. The word plastic comes from a Greek word that means to press into a mold. These people’s words are that way. They find out what you want to hear, what you want said, what will sell.

We see it in political realms today. You go out and ask, "What do you want to say?" and I’ll mold it to what you want so that I can get the position, the power, and I’ll just go do whatever I want to do.

Through covetousness. They’re greedy for power, for control, so they take words that are designed to fit the situation.

Verse 18 says for when they speak great swelling words of vanity: [18] For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through much wantonness, those that were clean escaped from them who live in error.
[19] While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage.

That’s a chilling verse. Great words—oh they sound good. Wonderful oratory. But they’re words of vanity. We’ve got a great word—we say "airheads." That’s really what it is.

Paul talks about the vanity of your mind. If you have something that has absolutely nothing in it you have a vacuum. You open it up and it sucks stuff in. There’s these great swelling words that are just sucking in all of these false ideas. They allure through the lust of the flesh.

It’s like I Timothy 4 says: [1] Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils;
[2] Speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron;

The path of faith is wearying to the flesh. You see, your flesh loves the performing. Makes it feel good; it satisfies. It hangs constantly to being able to do something.

Revelation 18, you’ll see how it fits in II Peter: [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,
[13] And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.

Revelation 17 and 18 is that religious system that rules over the earth is the religious system that’s heads up in the Antichrist and false prophet.

You look at verse 12 and the first thing in the list was gold. The last thing was souls. They’re selling the souls of men just like a merchandiser would sell his wares. This is the consistent pattern of false teachers.

Isaiah 56: [6] Also the sons of the stranger, that join themselves to the LORD, to serve him, and to love the name of the LORD, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant;
[7] Even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer: their burnt offerings and their sacrifices shall be accepted upon mine altar; for mine house shall be called an house of prayer for all people.
[8] The Lord GOD which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered unto him.
[9] All ye beasts of the field, come to devour, yea, all ye beasts in the forest.

[10] His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.
[11] Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand: they all look to their own way, every one for his gain, from his quarter.

Somebody said that’s the real DD degree. You ever see a preacher with a DD after his name? That means dumb dog.

Micah, looking toward the tribulation period, he’s looking on that fifth course of judgment on the nation Israel, Micah 3: [8] But truly I am full of power by the spirit of the LORD, and of judgment, and of might, to declare unto Jacob his transgression, and to Israel his sin.
[9] Hear this, I pray you, ye heads of the house of Jacob, and princes of the house of Israel, that abhor judgment, and pervert all equity.
[10] They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity.
[11] The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the LORD, and say, Is not the LORD among us? none evil can come upon us.
[12] Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places of the forest.

I'll tell you something about money--listen, folks, one of the clearest ways you know what’s valuable to you is where you spend your money. Religious hucksters all they’re interested in is the money and they’re just as alive and well in the dispensation of grace as they will be in the tribulation.

I Peter 4: [17] For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?
[18] And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
[19] Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.

There’s a passage just like this in Hebrews 10: [26] For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins,
[27] But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries.
[28] He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:

[29] Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?  

No worries

Here’s the way you’re able to humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God:

I Peter 5: [6] Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:
[7] Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.
[8] Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:

Paul says to us in Philippians 4: [6] Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
[7] And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

You and I are not to be full of care about anything; we’re not to be full of care about anything. That is, we’re not to worry about anything, says Richard Jordan.

We’re literally not to have worries that we have to cast on the Lord. Now that’s high ground, I understand that. I’m not going to pull rank and draw a line and say you can’t ever have a worry. I’m going to say you shouldn’t ever have a worry.

I’m not going to say you won’t ever have one, knowing my own failings. I’ll ask my wife, “What are you worried about that for?” and she’ll say, “I have to worry about it because you don’t.”

I’ve just, through the years, learned to just, you know, not worry about it. You know, something’s happening and something’s going to go on, and somebody will say, “Are you worried about such and such?” and I’ll say, “It’s not time to worry about it yet.”

A guy says, “I worry early.” Now, worrying early is just an excuse for jumping to conclusions. That’s all that is. You worry about something, then you have to worry about worrying about it and you have to worry about worrying about worrying about it and it changes 4-5 different times in the meantime.

What you need to do is just be prepared to handle it. Under grace you’re equipped to handle it. I mean, even difficult circumstances, instead of being problems, all of a sudden I can get excited and go in and figure out how to do this.

Instead of you worrying about it, just major on being equipped to handle whatever comes.

When it says they’re to cast their cares upon Him, that’s how it is they’re able to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God. They can trust Him to take care of things for them.

Psalm 55 is a Psalm of David that describes the cry of the nation Israel as they languish under the assaults of the Antichrist. In David’s case it’s a type of the Antichrist, but in prophetic view it’s the voice of the enemy.

[1] Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication.
[2] Attend unto me, and hear me: I mourn in my complaint, and make a noise;
[3] Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked: for they cast iniquity upon me, and in wrath they hate me.
[4] My heart is sore pained within me: and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.
[5] Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.
[6] And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest.

You ever felt like that: “Stop the world, I want to get off.” That’s it; that’s what David’s saying.

[7] Lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in the wilderness. Selah.
[8] I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.
[9] Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues: for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
[10] Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof: mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it.
[11] Wickedness is in the midst thereof: deceit and guile depart not from her streets.

That’s talking about life in the city. Hey, we live in the city. Does that sound a whole lot different than the place we live? People talk about the decay of the inner city. Sort of sounds like David.

It’s nothing new going on today. The same answers that David knew were answers are the answers today and the same problem David’s facing is the tribulation problem they’re going to face in the ages to come.

[12] For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him:
[13] But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance.
[14] We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.
[15] Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell: for wickedness is in their dwellings, and among them.
[16] As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me.
[17] Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.
[18] He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me: for there were many with me.
[19] God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.
[20] He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant.
[21] The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.

Doctrinally this is the Antichrist breaking the covenant with Israel and then seeking to destroy them, and in the midst of that hour of treachery, the remnant says, “Cast thy burden upon the Lord and He shall sustain thee.”

[22] Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
[23] But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction: bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days; but I will trust in thee.

That’s not a general statement, because many bloody and deceitful men live out all their days. That’s a statement prophetically about that tribulation period; exactly what he’s telling them in I Peter.

The commandment of Paul is “be careful for nothing.” That’s not a suggestion; it’s a commandment.

“Perfect peace have they that love thy law.” That’s all the verse says. It doesn’t say, “Perfect peace have they that love thy law and aren’t going through a mid-life crisis or don’t have bills they can’t pay.”

You’re never in a situation where you don’t know what to do. Even when you don’t know what to do you know what to do, because when you don’t know what to do, you go find out what to do, because you’re always capable of handling any situation.

When you get that mental attitude, that kind of mental-attitude dynamics working in your thinking process, then you don’t have any cares.

You don’t have anything to be anxious and worried about. You look at even the most difficult of problems as welcome challenges to give some excitement and some growth into your life. Rather than being worried about it, you welcome it as a challenge. Now you might get weary in it, but weariness and worry are two different things.

War analysis

(new article this evening for certain)

“Thou shalt not kill” is the most commonly misunderstood yet most commonly quoted verse of Scripture used to argue the Bible is against war.

The smug thinking is, “That just could not be any plainer,” but the reality is this Sixth Commandment has to do with murder—unjustified, willful, intended, premeditated homicide of another.

 Another favorite war-opposition verse, pulled out of context and not read for comprehension, is John 18:36: “Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.”

Richard Jordan recalls seeing political pundit James Carville on a TV news talk show quoting John 18:36 as proof that “no Christian would want to go to war.”

“They think what Jesus is saying is, ‘If my kingdom was of this world my disciples wouldn’t let the Romans kill me and the Jews band together with them. They’d deliver me. But I’m not going to engage in armed conflict because my kingdom is not of this world.'

“Now, there’s a key word you miss when you read that verse like that; it’s the word but. Jesus says, ‘But now is my kingdom not from hence.’ Can that make a difference in the way you read the passage? Do you know the difference between the first coming of Christ and the second coming of Christ?

“There’s the verse in Zachariah that says, ‘Behold your king comes meek and lowly on a colt, the foal of an ass.’ That’s His first coming. He’s to be a Savior. But then there’s that thing over in Revelation 19:11 where the heaven opens and He’s sitting on a white horse.

“He comes back out of heaven with fire in His eyes to judge and make war and set up His kingdom on this planet, destroying His enemies and wiping out of His kingdom everything that offends. We call that the Second Coming.

“So what that passage is talking about is real easy for anybody who knows anything about the Bible. Jesus said, ‘Right now, it’s not time to fight’; He didn’t say, ‘I won’t fight at all,’ because He’s gonna!”

*****

In an old study Jordan gave around the time of the start of the Iraq War, he made reference to TV ads sponsored by the United Methodist Church (the same church George W. Bush is a member of), in which the denomination’s head bishop quoted Matthew 5:9 from the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”

“The argument was, ‘We’re called to be peacemakers,' but the question is how do you make peace? How do you make peace with people who don’t want peace?

“People will quote Jesus on turning the other cheek to say, ‘See, that’s a pacifist lifestyle,’ but what is He teaching His disciples in Matthew 5? Well, look back at chapter 4:17. It says, ‘From that time Jesus began to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

“Verse 23 says Jesus went about Galilee ‘preaching the gospel of the kingdom.’ So in chapter 5, when He opens His mouth, what’s He gonna teach?! He’s gonna talk to them about His kingdom! And He’s going to describe the lifestyle of the citizens of His kingdom.

“In fact, you get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount and He’s sitting there like the king on His throne, describing the lifestyle; the living manner of the citizens of His kingdom.

“Matthew 5-7 is a description for kingdom living for Israel that will carry through the tribulation into the Second Coming of Christ in His kingdom. When somebody goes back to the Sermon on the Mount and tries to tell you that’s what you ought to be doing today, what are they doing? They’re in the wrong dispensation! They’re not even in the wrong pew in the right church; they’re in the wrong building! And they don’t do the passages anyway!

“I mean, in 5:28-30, He says if your ‘hand offend thee cut it off!’ Now, the Taliban do that and the Saudi Arabians do that and the Iraqis do that, but the bishop of the United Methodist Church doesn’t do that. You know why? He doesn’t want to go by what the passage says. He wants to make it what he wants it to be. Why? Not because the passage doesn’t mean what it says when it says it where it says it, but because they’re trying to take something that God isn’t doing today and make it work today.

“You’ll see the liberals and that crowd doing this kind of stuff all the time—quoting Scripture with no care at all about whether it’s the Word of God rightly divided.

“You’ll wind up in national disaster following people who don’t rightly divide the word of truth, because if you try to follow that passage into a life of pacifism and conscientious objecting you’re going to wind up in national slavery!”

*****

Yet another verse crammed down people’s throats to try and prove Jesus Christ taught, “No more war, just peace,” is Matthew 26:52: “Then said Jesus unto him, Put up again thy sword into his place: for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword.”

“People reason, ‘See, if you make war you’re going to die by war,’ but you better look at that verse again. He didn’t say, ‘Go throw the sword away’; ‘Disarm!’ He said, ‘Put it in its proper place.’

“What’s Peter doing in the passage? He’s drawing the sword and going out personally trying to decapitate a guy looking to take Jesus captive. I mean, the only way you can cut a guy’s ear off is if he’s ducking.

“You swing like this and he ducks, you get his ear. Pete’s going for the guy’s jugular. The guy ducks and it just gets his ear and Christ heals it and says, ‘Pete, put the sword in its place; it’s not your job to execute capital punishment.’

“Whose job was it? It’s the government’s. That verse is talking about crime and capital punishment of first-degree homicide. That verse hasn’t got anything to do with military activity! It’s talking about a person taking a sword and killing somebody on his own.

“Romans 13:4 says, ‘For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.’

“It’s the prerogative of the government that shouldn’t be taken over by an individual. Romans 12:17 says, ‘Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.’ The government has the responsibility of restraining evil and there isn’t but one way that’s done—it’s war.”

*****

Biblically, there are three instances when killing is authorized: self-defense, capital punishment and military action authorized by a government against the enemy in the battle for the preservation of national freedom.

“A just war against a real evil; that kind of warfare is from God; He authorizes that. Now, if you’ll get that in your mind as a premise, you’ll never have a question about being a conscientious objector.”

Numbers 32 presents a perfect case study in the Bible demonstrating the sinfulness of not going to war when it’s time to do so.

“Israel is going to go across into Canaan, and they’re instructed to wage war on the people there illegitimately and throw them out. Now, two tribes—Reuben and Gad—find they like it on the eastern side of the Jordan River and tell Moses, ‘We’ll take this territory over here as our inheritance.’

“Moses responds, ‘It’s not right for you not to have to go and help fight to get the land—the Promised Land. Don’t start this pacifism stuff about how you’re not going to go fight; you’re gonna stay over there. The battle’s over here, guys! That’s the land God gave us.’

“You know what Moses’ saying? ‘If you don’t go to war when it’s time to war, it’s sinful.’ In Numbers 32:23, he says, ‘But if ye will not do so, behold, ye have sinned against the LORD: and be sure your sin will find you out.’

“Now, you’ve heard that verse preached by preachers for ages—how your sin will find you out—and they talk about your drunkenness, adultery, lying, stealing. They use the verse, pull it out of its context and preach against the things they don’t like, but that verse is talking about cowardice! It’s talking about the sin of not going to war when it’s time to go to war!

“Moses said, ‘Look guys, if you’ll go and fight with the other tribes and win the war and get the thing over with, then it will be okay for you to have this land over here. But if don’t, you can be sure your sin of cowardice—and refusal to war when it’s time to go to war—will find you out.’

“People, when it’s time to do something and go to war, it’s wrong not to. That’s very clear.”

*****

Another key Bible principle of war is a nation need not wait until the enemy attacks before striking back.

“The big hullabaloo was made (before the Iraq War) that you got to find a reason to link (Iraq) with Al Qaeda so you can prove they attacked us. But the verses say, ‘No, no, no.’ One of the ‘just war’ doctrines of Augustine was that you never attack first. That isn’t bible.

“Numbers 32:32 says, ‘We will pass over armed before the LORD into the land of Canaan, that the possession of our inheritance on this side Jordan may be ours.’

"That’s saying, ‘We’ll go over there and fight so that our land on this side over here, where we’re not fighting, is secure.’ You see, in the Bible, a preemptive strike is not out of the question. You don’t have to wait till the enemy hits you before you hit him.

“There are times, and this is an example, where God required the aggressive action without an enemy striking first. Why? Because the enemy was in the wrong place and it was time to get him out of there.”

Reshaping Middle East for Antichrist

(sorry, will have new article this evening now. in meantime, here's one from 2014:)

Referring to the unrest in the Middle East today, Richard Jordan commented in his Wednesday night study, “If you want to really think about what’s going on over there, all those national boundaries in the Middle East will be changed in order for the Antichrist to rise to power. There have to be 10 nations that run that territory over there. There are way too many now.

“Until the last few years, the boundary changes that will be necessary you would have never thought about anybody changing, because in your lifetime and my lifetime and in our parents’ lifetime, the edict was, ‘We don’t change boundaries.’

“Now you can see how, just like that, they can evaporate and new ones show up, and all that does is tell you that God’s Word can come through right on the money, quicker than people think that it can.

“All those changes that have to take place in the Middle East, you just look at it and you say, ‘Wow, that’s not so hard to understand how some of these passages in the Prophets can come to pass,’ because the boundaries are really artificial anyway. God’s going to devour all those enemies.

*****

“After World War I, the French, the British and the Allies drew up national boundaries in the Middle East and that’s why you have a funny-looking country like Saudi Arabia, where the border lines go up through the dessert, and countries like Jordan and Iraq that have their own funny-looking boundaries.

“Iraq was really three different countries and they made one country out of it and gave military sanction to it.

“After World War II, one of the things the Allies decided was that the all of the national boundaries that were there at the beginning of the war would be respected; that no one would change any of the national boundaries. In other words, one nation wasn’t going to absorb another nation.

“After the Berlin Wall, all of a sudden that rule kind of went away because when the Communists fell, Yugoslavia, for example, was a whole bunch of little countries held together—Tito held it together with a gun.

“It was the Clinton Administration that did the first boundary changing in Europe. Now, Putin in Russia wants to change the boundaries up there to what they were and everybody says, ‘Ooh, you can’t do that,’ and he says, ‘Well, you did it 20 years ago.’

“Now the Arab and Persian world are saying, ‘Hey, those boundaries; we didn’t set them up. We didn’t agree to them,’ and they’re going up in flames."

*****

In the same study, Jordan talked about how healing in the Bible has nothing to do with what you hear and see talked about with the faith healers.

“Did you know that the largest faith healing outfit on the planet is the Roman Catholic Church? You think of Benny Hinn, Oral Roberts, A.A. Allen, Peter Popoff and all that crowd of wackos, but the biggest bunch of ‘healers’ is Romanism. People make pilgrimages to Lourdes and that kind of thing.

"I remember years ago reading about a Catholic priest in New Jersey who had the gift of healing people’s heart disease and then when he died. They cut his heart out, put it in a big pickle jar, put stuff in it and it’s sitting on an altar for people with heart disease to come and pray. You know the old saying, ‘High pay, high mass; low pay, low mass; no pay, no mass’? That’s where that came from.

“You go into the mission in San Juan Capistrano and go to the back of it and there’s this little alcove with a board that has 30-some names on it. At the top it says, ‘People who’ve been prayed for and healed in our Mission.’ The idea was is if you came, prayed, got healed, they’d add your name to it.

“By the way, they teach that the healing is in the atonement and that Jesus is going to heal your body if you take Him and take the mass and that kind of stuff.

“In the Bible, the healing program is at the Second Coming of Christ when He removes the curse of sin on creation and then He heals His people from the diseases that sin had brought and gives them the blessings of health and wealth that He promised them.”

Superman's origins and outer darkness

Two major news "sightings" this week around my hometown of Akron. First, it was the multiple Bigfoot sightings in Portage County (as newlyweds my parents lived in a lakefront cottage on Portage Lakes owned by my grandparents). Then, as of Tuesday, a 7-ton meteor exploded over Medina County (my parents had moved to Holgate Street in Fairlawn before I was born and we lived there until becoming missionaries in 1969).

From one news site: "Videos captured by National Weather Service staff and local cameras showed a bright streak cutting across the sky, followed by a flash. In some areas, the shockwave was strong enough to shake buildings and trigger concerns about explosions."

I will have a new article this evening and in the meantime:

Matthew 24:37-39 warns, [37] But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

[38] For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
[39] And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.

“That means that the things taking place in the days of Noah are going to be like the things taking place in the days before Christ comes back,” explains Richard Jordan. “Well, some of things taking place in the days of Noah are kind of weird, having to do with angels that sinned.

“So II Peter says, ‘Hey guys, the angels that sinned back there, you see them out here doing it now . . . God didn’t spare them then and He isn’t going to spare them over there.’

“II Peter 2:4 says, [4] For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment;

“That tells you something about angels. Darkness is a chain to an angel. How are you going to put handcuffs on an angel and chain them to a wall? You don’t do it that way. The thing that chains him is just removing all the light.

“That’s why angels are associated with stars in the Bible. They have to go to a light source in order to be able to function, so they’re reserved under darkness.

“You ever read over there in Exodus where Moses writes about God putting darkness on the land and it was a darkness that could be FELT? I mean, you could strike a match and hold it up to you until it singed the hair on the end of your nose and you couldn’t see. That’s real darkness.

“The Bible talks about how in the kingdom there’s ‘outer darkness.’ Matthew 8:12 says, [12] But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“That’s something about what hell will be like. You see, there aren’t going to be friends in hell. People say, ‘Agh, I’ll have lots of friends; my old carousing buddies will be there.’ No, you won’t see a friend in hell. You know why? It’s going to be so dark. You know how frightening it is to be in the dark?

*****

“You ever been out in the woods camping and heard a screech owl at night? They can let out a scream and it sounds like something between stark terror and sheer agony. Sort of a blend between those two things. They scream to startle and stun their prey so they can go grab them.

“If you’re asleep in your tent, that scream can make the hair stand up on the back of your neck and scare you to death. It’ll make your blood run cold. You stick your head out of the sleeping bag and look over and see the campfire and check to see everybody is still around and nobody’s missing.

“In hell you hear those screams coming from the damned of the ages and you won’t be able to see a thing. They’ll be no mother’s lullabies, no happy relief. They’ll just be the agony of the final installment for the payment of your sin.

“That’s what Jesus Christ took for you at Calvary. That’s why God laid across the canopy of Palestine darkness for those three hours at Christ’s crucifixion. His son was engulfed in that darkness and hung there and took your sin and had the wrath of God poured out against Him there that He might give you His life.”

*****

"Genesis 7:1 says, [1] And the LORD said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation.

“You know how many men there were at that time who were righteous in their generations? There was one man and his family of three boys and their wives. That isn’t a very big godly line, you know that?

“It’s not like there’s these hordes of ‘the godly line of Seth’ all over the world, influencing politics, religion and arts and marrying all these unsaved women. They weren’t there.

“You go to Matthew 1 and look down through the genealogy of the Messiah and you don’t see a godly line there. You see a rascal like David. You know who David was? He was an adulterer who lived in the king’s palace. He’d make Bill Clinton look like a Sunday school teacher out on a picnic. You forget about some of the heroes in the Bible. He’d make John Kennedy look like a man who was faithful to all his house.

“David was an adulterer and a child abuser and he wound up a murderer. He was a lousy flop when it came to being a daddy. He raised the biggest bunch of brats and no-good kids you’d ever want to see. He raised murderers, rapists and adulterers for kids. Now how do you like that for a leader? You know where he is? He’s in the genealogy of the Lord Jesus Christ.

“You see, there’s no such thing as a godly line leading to the Messiah. Tamar is in that line. You ever read Genesis 38, 39, along in there, about Tamar? How she went out and played the harlot? Made herself up, sold herself to her father-in-law so she could have a child and be in the line? Not exactly the most wonderfully spiritual people you’d ever want to meet, but they’re in the line.

*****

“If you’re the Adversary and you know God’s made a promise of a coming Redeemer, what would you want to do? Stop Him.

“If you know the way He’s going to come is through ‘the seed of a woman,’ then who would you attack? Women. So the ‘sons of God’ (angels who aligned themselves with Satan) sought to rebel and destroy what God was doing by going after the ‘daughters of men,’ making them their wives, and their offspring were super-intellect giants; superheroes.

“There’s literally a supernatural angelic invasion to attempt to corrupt the human race. Jude 6 says, [6] And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.
[7] Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
[8] Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.

“Did you ever wonder where all the mythology (Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Norse, etc.) about 'superman' (gods with a little 'g') came from? You ever wonder where the ideas for all these big strong guys came from? Somebody wasn’t just sitting around with a hallucination in their head on their bed.

“The Bible is the greatest scientific textbook on types and symbols and things you can’t understand. Just like there’s a reason every culture that’s ever been discovered on the face of the earth, somewhere in its folklore, has an account of Creation where two people who lived in a garden is where everybody else came from. They all have an account of a great flood, where the human race survived by someone building a boat."