Untitled Sermon

A Fortiori

A Fortiori     RD/Heb/172b

“From the lesser to the greater”

If it is a sin worthy of divine punishment to break the Moasaic Covenant,

how much more severe will the punishment be for treating the work of Christ on the cross with contempt.

Then there was an illustration given in verses 28 and 29.  This illustration that’s set up here is based on a form of logic called an a fortiori argument.  The Latin a fortiori means from the stronger.  The way this works is if something is true in one case and then you have something similar - but usually greater - if it's true in case A and case B is similar then maybe even to a greater degree; then it is true about that in a greater degree.  If you're confused now, let me explain that a little better.  It's the idea that if a sin under the Mosaic covenant is worthy of divine punishment (so if you break the Mosaic covenant) – if that sins is worthy of divine punishment; how much more severe the punishment will be for treating the work of Christ on the cross in a contemptuous manner.  See if God instantly disciplined the Israelites in the wilderness - some He took immediately out under the sin unto death – if that happens for an infraction of the Mosaic covenant which we've already studied as a lesser covenant - then when you come to this greater covenant of the New Covenant which was established (The sacrifice of Christ on the cross established it); then if you treat that contemptuously; if you treat the blood of the covenant that is the death of Christ in a  contemptuous disrespectful manner by just rejecting it, then there's going to be an even more severe punishment than what you have for infractions under the Mosaic Law.

Abiding

Abiding   RD/1 John/071

1.       Abiding is a technical term in John for the believer who is having fellowship with God, walking by the Spirit and walking in the light.

2.       Only the believer who abides in Christ can advance and mature. When a believer is not abiding in Christ he is out of fellowship and is controlled by the sin nature.

3.       As we abide in Him not only does he abide in us but His Word abides in us and God abides in us. Abiding is mutual. The more we abide in Him the more he abides in us; the more we abide in Him the more His Word abides in us.

4.       Not all believers abide. Those who don’t abide will suffer divine discipline in time and loss of rewards and shame at the judgment seat of Christ.

So abide is a term for fellowship and for someone who is spending time staying in fellowship and growing to spiritual maturity. What we read here is, “if we love one another God abides in us.” We can’t love one another unless God is abiding in us; God won’t abide in us unless we are abiding in Christ. We are not going to be abiding in Christ unless we stay in fellowship. We have to bring all this together. The key is, we stay in fellowship, we abide in Christ, and then God in turn abides in us, and He is producing something in us: His character. This is exemplified by the fruits of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22, 23. So love doesn’t come automatically, it comes as a result of walking by means of God the Holy Spirit. That means that in order to love one another we have some preconditions. We have to be learning doctrine. We have to be using 1 John 1:9 to not only recover fellowship but then we have to be applying doctrine while we are not sinning because when we are sinning we are out of fellowship.

Loving one another brings into focus the aspect of the mutual ministry of believers to one another in the body of Christ. This usually functions under the category of spiritual gifts. Remember, there are two categories of spiritual gifts: temporary and permanent. Love is not automatic in the spiritual life; it doesn’t just happen. We have to go through the process. The last clause in verse 12: “His love is matured in us,” is a perfect passive participle and the perfect tense indicates emphasis on the present results of a past action. So for the mature believer at X point in time, we see God in him. We see him demonstrate God’s character and at that point he is following the command of loving one another. This is the result of something that has happened in the past. The past action is the completion of love, or maturity.

Abraham

Abraham                          RD/Gen. 112b

We have seen that there are six different ways that the New Testament focuses our attention back on Abraham. This tells us that there are six central core doctrines that come out of Abraham that we learn historically in the progress of revelation. As we progress from Genesis to Revelation God adds incrementally information and reveals new doctrines, new information. It doesn’t change anything but it expands. This is called progressive revelation. So that Noah knew more than Adam, Abraham knew more than  Noah, Joseph knew more than Abraham, David knew more than Joseph. There is a progress of revelation.

1)      The first thing we see emphasized in the New Testament is the Abrahamic covenant. This is the positional truth doctrine for Israel. This is their position in Abraham. The covenant gives them security. That covenant is never going to be breached or taken away.

2)       The second thing we saw was that Abraham is the picture of justification at salvation, phase one. If we want to go to a situation in history, an individual’s life, to teach justification salvation we go to Abraham. It is taught in Romans chapter four.

3)       Third, he is the picture of justification at spiritual maturity. He vindicates his faith, his belief, his doctrine, what he has learned, that he hasn’t been just a hearer but is an applier. James chapter two focuses on that.

4)        Then, we learn about spiritual advance through the faith-rest drill. This is the whole point of Hebrews 11:8ff. Abraham goes from spiritual birth when he is justified by faith, starting as a spiritual infant, he goes to that vindication stage of spiritual maturity incrementally by passing various tests—trusting God, or in some cases failing to trust God—in his progress to spiritual maturity.

5)      He is a picture of election, that God chooses certain people for certain tasks in history; not for salvation, but He chooses Abraham in terms of what He is going to do through Abraham in history. It is not a choice related to salvation, it is a choice related to his role in history.

6)      Missions: that all nations will be blessed through Abraham. He becomes the foundation for the doctrine of missions. In the Old Testament Israel wasn’t commanded to send out missionaries, they were commanded to be obedient to God and then when people traveled to Israel they would see this tremendous culture and civilization that was built on a relationship with God, and then the travelers in theory would go back home and take the gospel. And that did happen at times, but most of the time Israel decided that they were going to compromise with the pagans around them and so they weren’t a witness at all. In the New Testament the church goes out. There is not a nation per se, there is a people, the church, and they are sent to all the nations in the world.

Abraham

Abraham                            RD/Gen. 108b

The life of Abraham is picked up in the New Testament to illustrate six different things. This is important to understand what is happening in Genesis chapter 22.

1)      It is God’s provision for the human race, through the Abrahamic covenant (Positional Truth). He makes specific promises to Abraham and the seed related to the land and that the blessing is going to come through his seed. Paul picks that up in Galatians chapter three and applies it to the Lord Jesus Christ, but ultimately there will be a blessing to all mankind through Abraham.

2)      Election: God’s choice or selection of Abraham and the Jews in the Old Testament becomes the picture for understanding what Paul discusses on election in the New Testament.

3)       Justification by faith alone when the believer understands the gospel and puts his faith alone in Christ alone. This is what we refer to as phase one salvation, the first stage of salvation. It is instant and complete. Cf. .

4)       Another kind of justification is given in James chapter two, and this is a vindication before man and before the angels.

5)       We have the principles of spiritual growth and spiritual advance illustrated in Hebrews 11:9-19, “By faith Abraham.” So Abraham is a picture of how to be saved—justification by faith alone; he is the picture of mature justification—vindication before man and angels; and in Hebrews 11 he is the picture of how to get from spiritual birth to spiritual maturity. This is indicated through the process of testing, and the classic test in Abraham’s life is Genesis chapter twenty-two.

6)      Abraham is the basis for missions because it is through the seed of Abraham that all the nations will be blessed. So when we understand the Abrahamic covenant it drives us straight to the cross, and then the cross almost acts like a blessing prism and spreads it out for all the nations. So the responsibility of church age believers is to promote the expansion of the gospel throughout all the nations of the earth.

Abraham’s final exam comes in Genesis 22. God tests Abraham with respect to the promises He has given. The same kind of thing happens to us in the church age. The tests that God brings into our lives during our spiritual advance are related to the provisions that He gave us at the instant of salvation. Those unshakeable provisions that are a part of our spiritual asset package are what God tests as we advance through the Christian life.

So Abraham is a picture of the faith-rest drill, and we see basically three things that are going on here.

1)      Abraham is tested to see if he understood these doctrines that God has been teaching him.

2)      Abraham provides a shadow imagery that will later be fulfilled down to the minutest detail. So Genesis 22 picks up typologically certain images. We are told in v.2, “Take now your son, your only son Isaac.” In the Greek translation the phrase “only son” is translated with the Greek word MONOGENES [monogenhj]. The word can be broken down to MONO, meanings one, GENES is related to GENAO, which means generation, or uniquely generated one, or it can refer to one of a kind, and that is the main idea. It is one of a kind. It is applied here to Isaac, he was one of a kind. He was not the only son, but he is a uniquely provided son. It is applied later to Jephthah’s daughter, his only daughter, and refers to the uniqueness of the child. So Isaac is a picture and a type of Jesus Christ. The ram that is provided in the bushes is a picture and type of the substitutionary atonement. So there is this typological detail that is given.

3)      Then we see that this is all a picture of how God uses testing for spiritual advance in the believer.

Abraham

Six different ways that the New Testament focuses our attention back on Abraham. RD/Gen/112

1)      The first thing we see emphasized in the New Testament is the Abrahamic covenant. This is the positional truth doctrine for Israel. This is their position in Abraham. The covenant gives them security. That covenant is never going to be breached or taken away.

2)       The second thing we saw was that Abraham is the picture of justification at salvation, phase one. If we want to go to a situation in history, an individual’s life, to teach justification salvation we go to Abraham. It is taught in Romans chapter four.

3)       Third, he is the picture of justification at spiritual maturity. He vindicates his faith, his belief, his doctrine, what he has learned, that he hasn’t been just a hearer but is an applier. James chapter two focuses on that.

4)        Then, we learn about spiritual advance through the faith-rest drill. This is the whole point of Hebrews 11:8ff. Abraham goes from spiritual birth when he is justified by faith, starting as a spiritual infant, he goes to that vindication stage of spiritual maturity incrementally by passing various tests—trusting God, or in some cases failing to trust God—in his progress to spiritual maturity.

5)      He is a picture of election, that God chooses certain people for certain tasks in history; not for salvation, but He chooses Abraham in terms of what He is going to do through Abraham in history. It is not a choice related to salvation, it is a choice related to his role in history.

6)      Missions: that all nations will be blessed through Abraham. He becomes the foundation for the doctrine of missions. In the Old Testament Israel wasn’t commanded to send out missionaries, they were commanded to be obedient to God and then when people traveled to Israel they would see this tremendous culture and civilization that was built on a relationship with God, and then the travelers in theory would go back home and take the gospel. And that did happen at times, but most of the time Israel decided that they were going to compromise with the pagans around them and so they weren’t a witness at all. In the New Testament the church goes out. There is not a nation per se, there is a people, the church, and they are sent to all the nations in the world.

So these six doctrines come out of Abraham and they become a foundation for the rest of Scripture. This builds a framework of thinking in our souls so that we can look at different elements of history and life through the grid of Scripture.

Abraham 10 test

RD/Gen/105

1. goes to Egypt because of a famine, lies about Seriah his half sister in Egypt and it threatens the seed.

2. handles Lot in grace orientation and separates from him.

3. Invasion of the 4 Kings.

4. When he wins is he going to responds to God's grace with generosity and give back to God.

5. Chapter 15 and the covenant and not be afraid and trust God.

6. Chapter 16 Test of the seed and Seriah giving of Hagar to Abraham.

7. Chapter 17 Test of the covenant and to be circumcised

8. Test related to generosity when the 3 visitors come to visit him

9. Test of his care for Lot.

10. Test relates to protecting the Seed. Chapter 20

Abraham 6 Doctrines

Central Doctrines from Abraham RD/Gen/113

1. Abrahamic Covenant (Positional Truth)

2. Justification at Phase One ()

3. Justification at Spiritual Maturity ()

4. Spiritual advance by the Faith Rest Drill.

5. Election ()

6. Missions ("all nations will be blessed")

So how did Abraham get from point A to point Z? Test, test, test, test, test. That is done by walking by faith, as illustrated in those verses . That is the mechanics, trusting in God. So he is the illustration of the faith-rest drill as he moves from point A to point Z, and that comes through application of doctrine.

‎  The 13 tests of Abraham’s life

‎The first test was to go to a new land and to leave the family behind. To understand the tests we have to go back and understand the framework, the Abrahamic covenant. The positional promises that God gave Abraham are reduced to three: land, seed, and blessing. The tests all relate to one of those three promises. In terms of our position in Christ, how many aspects are there to that positional grace provision? We have all learned that God gave us forty things. That is our positional reality—all those things that God did for us, that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, which is a lot more than forty. So the tests that we encounter are going to be tests related to understanding what God gave us at the instant of salvation, because those are our eternal possessions that can never be taken away from us. So just as God tested Abraham with regard to the three components of that promise—land, seed, and blessing—we are going to get testing in relationship to understanding all of the dynamics of the Christian life in terms of what God has done for us in adopting us into the royal family, and all the aspects related to salvation—redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, aspects related to the Holy Spirit, His indwelling, baptism, sealing, filling, plus the fact that we are also indwelled by Jesus Christ, all these things. That is what we are going to be tested on. So that means that before we have the test we are supposed to acquire the knowledge. We learn in first and then apply it.

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‎So the first test is to go to a new land. Is he really going to trust God to provide for him in the geographical place that God has provided for him. We know that he was a little hesitant in trusting God at first, so he goes to Haran first and is there for probably fifteen years or more, and then he moves on to the land finally.

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‎Then he gets (second) tested in relation to the land. , “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto your seed will I give this land: and there built he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.” This is after he arrives in the land, and this is the second statement of the land promise. Is he going to trust God and stay in the land when the famine comes, or is he going to try to solve the problem on his own? He tried to solve the problem on his own, which is what you and I do. Abraham is down in Egypt and out of fellowship, and God is just multiplying his wealth! When he finally leaves Egypt he is wealthy, even though he has failed in his spiritual test, but he has picked up certain things that will be the basis for further tests. That is just what happens with us. But Abraham and Lot become so wealthy that when they get back to the land, which has a famine problem, the land which God has promised him can’t support them. So now there is going to be this family rivalry.

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‎We often have all kinds of tests in life. We have tests of things that are just inconvenient, we have to deal with people who are just not doing the job the way they should, we have to deal with bureaucracies and systems, we have health testing, financial testing, testing in the area of grief or loss, weather disasters—all of these things that can happen, and we have to decide how we are going to respond to each one. The issue there is always how we are going to choose to handle the situation. We can either handle it through human viewpoint or we trust the Lord, so that the foundation of all of our problem-solving is really the faith-rest drill, and that leads to the use of one of the ten problem-solving devices. That is divine viewpoint. If we go to human viewpoint we just forget trust, forget faith-rest drill, and we operate on human viewpoint. We work out really good rationalizations for what we are doing. It sounds good, and it may have a lot of truth in it. In Job, if you look at the statements made by Eliphaz and by Bildad and by Zophar there are a lot of things that they say that are right, but their structure is wrong, their framework is wrong. That is why it is so important to have a framework of biblical doctrine because even though you have components within your framework that are true if they are not put together in the right structure the structure is not going to hold weight. There are verses in Job that can be pulled out and we say it is a great statement, it is true. But of you look at the context he has positioned it within a faulty argument. In a case like that a person is mixing truth with error. And that is what we all do. We rationalize, we justify. For example, Abraham when he told Abimelech Sarah was his sister: “My life is going to be threatened here, I have to protect myself, don’t I?” That was his rationale. It is just human viewpoint trying to solve life’s problems without really trusting God. So we develop the strategies that get very complex to protect ourselves from perceived danger, loss, whatever we think that the threat is; and they all just come out of our sin nature. We see that Abraham has to go through this process because in the early stages here he is half obeying and half failing. But in that incremental stage he learns a little bit more each time about the trustworthiness of God.

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‎This is really illustrated in Lot because Lot is so arrogant that all he can focus on is the temporal reality. Abraham, when he comes to the third test when Lot’s servants and his servants are fighting against each other and he says that the land is too small to support both of them, Abraham has learned from the previous test. The previous test he flunked. He didn’t respond by trusting God (no faith-rest drill); he didn’t respond by grace orientation. He didn’t recognize that God had graciously given him the land therefore God would graciously provide for him in the land even though there was a famine. Now he is back in the land and he still has a famine problem, and now he has a people-testing problem because Lot and his servants are causing problems, but Lot is totally self-absorbed and he is focusing on temporal reality. Abraham has learned to be gracious, so he says take your pick of the land. Lot is willing to sacrifice his whole spiritual life so that he can live in the right place, and he wanted to be there because that’s where the entertainment was, where the action was, and where the city life of his day was. So he is going to justify it in his mind and that leads to self-deception where he is completely divorced from reality. We really saw that picture when judgment eventually came on Sodom because his wife just doesn’t want to leave. She looks back, she just can’t pull herself back from all the carnality and all the attractions of the cosmic system. So God judges her for that.

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‎We learned about the arrogance skills and the whole cycle from self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-justification, self-deception to self-deification where we become our own god. That is the same process that is illustrated in Romans chapter one, and if we don’t break this cycle through confession of sin and humility, realizing what God has done for us and humbling ourselves through the mighty hand of God——then we are just going to continue to deteriorate until our lives just fragment, and then we get the natural consequences intensified by divine discipline.

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‎So the third test was the test to treat Lot with grace and generosity, and again it is related to the land. And when it is over with he passes the test God takes him aside and, at the end of chapter thirteen, and says, Walk in the land in its length and width for I give it to you. So God praises him for passing the test.

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‎Then we come to the fourth test which is related to blessing. Abraham is mandated to be a blessing to those around him. We see the invasion of the four kings. So the test is going to be related blessing and to grace orientation. Is he going to deal with his pagan neighbors and with stupid Lot on the basis of grace and on the basis of God’s character rather than his character? He passed that test and demonstrated that he can be a blessing to his pagan neighbors. And that is an interesting example to us, that we can be good and kind to the pagans in our environment who are completely hostile to everything that we stand for.

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‎Then the fifth test which was the test to express his gratitude to God. That is when he returned to Salem and he meets Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Melchizedek represents a royal priest, and he is going to be the type of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in this event Abraham has had a victory and so gets to express his gratitude to God and does so by giving the tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek as an offering of gratitude to God for what He has done. He also refuses to take anything from the king of Sodom because he wants to make it very clear that his victory and his involvement in the battle was related to his obedience to God and he didn’t have anything to do with the perverts in Sodom.

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‎The sixth test in chapter fifteen is again related to the seed. It has been some time now since God promised Abraham descendants, and it hasn’t happened yet. ‎Abraham was apparently beginning to worry about this a little bit, so God comes along in chapter fifteen and He gives him a command. That is how we know it was a Test. When there is a command then there is a test related to obedience to the command. , “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward.” It is in this chapter that He makes it clear that the descendant will come from his own body, it won’t be through his servant. The covenant is cut at this point.

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‎The next (seventh) test is related to the seed again, in chapter sixteen. This time it is, Are we going to trust God to provide the seed through Abraham and Sarah or are we going to try to make another human viewpoint end run? This was the incident with Hagar resulting in the birth of Ishmael who becomes the father of a certain segment of Arab tribes, and this is where the whole Arab-Israeli conflict had its beginning. So he fails that test. Rather than sticking with it, persevering, and trusting in God no matter how impossible it seemed that Sarah could have a child, he gave in to human viewpoint rationalization.

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‎Then we have another (eight) test related to the seed in chapter seventeen. Here the covenant is reconfirmed, but now a sign is going to be given of the covenant, the sign of circumcision. This is going to be a picture of sanctification, the removal of the influence of the flesh, the sin nature. He trusts God and he and all those in his household are circumcised. Again, God reconfirms the covenant with him and He states in addition that it is going to be with Sarah and that He will establish the covenant with his son, Isaac. So the contract is expanded even further.

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‎A ninth test comes in chapter eighteen and again this relates to blessing. Three visitors show up. One is the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ and the other two are angels. He is very hospitable to his visitors and so he passes the grace orientation test.

Another (tenth) test in the chapter follows and this is again a test of grace orientation. God is going to take Abraham into His confidence and tell him that He is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. That is where Lot lives and so it is a test to see if Abraham is going to exercise impersonal love towards Lot. But Abraham passed the test, he has functioned honorably, he has passed the test of being a blessing to his undeserving neighbors and relatives, and he has dealt with them in grace.

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‎The eleventh test occurs in Genesis chapter twenty, and again it relates to the seed. How is he going to protect the seed? Is he going to continue to trust God? Sarah still isn’t pregnant, so now they go to live in Philistia, in Gerar, and Abraham lies about Sarah being his wife again. Why? Because he is afraid for his life. Rather than ‎trusting God he is afraid somebody is going to kill him and take Sarah for his wife. So he fails the test, but he is learning. He is learning that God is the one who is going ‎to protect him, and no matter what that seed is coming, the child is going to be born through Sarah, and in chapter 21 Isaac is born.

And again there is a (twelve) test to protect the seed. Now there would be the threat of rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael and Hagar are sent away to protect the inheritance and the seed.

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‎Abraham’s (thirteenth test) final exam is in chapter twenty-two where God tells him to take Isaac the promised son to Mount Moriah and to sacrifice him. So again it is a test related to the seed, it is a test related to the faith-rest drill, and it is a test related to his personal love for God. Is the promise of God more real to him than his circumstances?

‎Does he love God so much that he will do anything that God asks him to do, even it means to take the life of his cherished son he had waited for for so long. He reasons ‎though, based on Hebrews eleven, that because God had promised that he was going to have a multitude of descendants through Isaac, therefore God, who has always been true to His Word, must be true to this word. Even if he killed Isaac God could bring him back to life, so that was what he thought God was going to do. So he never gives it a second thought, he takes Isaac to Moriah, lays him out on the altar, comes to the point where he is going to kill Isaac. God stops him, and he has ‎demonstrated that he is trusting God no matter what. And God provided a substitute, a perfect picture of salvation, that Jesus Christ is our substitute.

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‎Abraham passes these tests, according to , because he had a future focus. The reality of God’s plan for him in the future was greater than his present circumstances. And that is the challenge to us, to grow to that point where no matter what is going on in our life this is only temporary, it is only this world. It is a future world that He has prepared for us that He is preparing us for, and we have to go through these tests just as Abraham did and every other believer does in order to have the capacity to properly function in terms of the responsibility and the privileges that God is going to give us to reign as kings and priests in the Millennial kingdom.

‎Abraham pictures that.

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Abraham: The Test of

The Tests of Abraham  RD/James/048

1)      Tests are related to God’s special revelation to us. With Abraham he had revelation, specifically the Abrahamic covenant given in Genesis 12:1-3. God’s tests, especially as they are revealed in these chapters of Genesis from 12 to 24, are almost all related to the provisions in the Abrahamic covenant. The tests are designed to teach Abraham about who God is, that God is faithful to His promises and will fulfil them.  

2)      The tests come in two categories, tests of adversity and tests of prosperity.

3)      These tests represent the outside pressure of circumstances that are designed to put us in a situation that calls for us to make a decision by either applying the doctrine that we have learned or to operate on the power of the flesh, the sin nature.

4)      Abraham’s doctrinal provision derived from revelation recorded in the scrolls that had been handed down from Adam through Noah, and down to Abraham. Those scrolls are not extant today. The information needed from these was included in the Pentateuch.

5)      As doctrine is revealed faith is tested.

6)      As we learn doctrine God then takes us through various situations and experiences to give us the opportunity to utilize those doctrines. What this means is that doctrine is supposed to man more to you than your family, your loved ones, your friends, than the comfort and the security of familiar surroundings.

7)      The next test that Abraham goes through after leaving Ur is the test of God’s logistical provision. There is a famine in the land. He is going through some adversity, he doesn’t think there will be enough resources to keep body and soul together, so rather than staying in the land where God told him to be, and following divine viewpoint where God’s Word is more real to him than his experiences, his economic condition and the meteorological situation, he goes to Egypt. So he fails the test for provision.

8)      The next test is the separation from Lot. God is calling out a people for his name, and that is why there had to be a separation from Lot, so that there wouldn’t be these negative volition influences on what Abraham was doing in calling out this new people of God that would be the nation Israel.

9)      The protection and possessions test. It relates to the provision in the Abrahamic covenant where God said, “I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you.” Here the five kings in the Chedorlaomer alliance attacked into Canaan. God is going to show that these people He is calling out are going to be a blessing to those around them. So Abraham attacks the alliance, defeats them in battle, and recaptures all the booty, frees the slaves and the prisoners that were captured. So Abraham passes that test.

10)   Then he goes into the first of three production tests. God promised him a descendant, a seed—fertility, production. God has promised him a child and in production test #1 he fails it because he is trying to circumvent the promise of God to give him an heir through his own seed and he is going to adopt Eleazar. God intervenes and reiterates His promise to Abraham. Then we see production test #2—Hagar and Ishmael. Unfortunately this is what many Christians do. They use the culturally accepted modus operandi, whatever that may be, rather than trusting God exclusively. Ultimately it will never work, you cannot mix divine viewpoint with human viewpoint.

11)   There is the test of the promise given again in chapter 17, the reiteration of the promise that God will give Abraham a child. Abraham trusts God, goes through the rite of circumcision which is the sign of the Abrahamic covenant, he passes the test.

12)   There is another situation developing. God is going to judge the cities of the plain, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns, and so Abraham is again going to have to face the protection test. So Abraham asks the Lord questions. Every time the Lord says that if there is a remnant, there is blessing by association from that remnant. He works his way down to ten. Lot is in town and we are going to see how Abraham here, because he puts his focus on others, is going to be a blessing by association and Lot and his daughters are going to survive.

13)   Abraham gest the prosperity test. He goes down to live in the Negev and down there he is not too far from a Philistine king named Abimilech. This is the second time but this time there was no adversity. The first time there was the famine, so he escaped down to Egypt and lied about his wife. This time there is no famine, he is in prosperity. But he still operates on the same human viewpoint, solve-my-problems methodology, and he lies about Sarah.

14)   Then we come to chapter 22 which is the test after the birth of Isaac, the test of the offering of Isaac. That is just an overview of how testing works in Abraham’s life. It just wasn’t one test and there were many more than those mentioned. That is the way it is in our lives. We have these tests, and they are little tests sometimes but they have major results. The test is, how are you going to organize your schedule so that doctrine is the priority of your life so that when these various tests of faith come you can apply doctrine. That is the way that growth takes place.

James 2:22 NASB “You see that faith [doctrine] was working with his works [application], and as a result of the works [application], faith [doctrine] was perfected [brought to completion].” It is not doctrine without application, it is doctrine with application. It is brought to completion when there is application.

Abrahamic Covenant

Review of the Abrahamic covenant RD/Gen/112

1)      The overall covenant promises a land, a seed, and a blessing. The preview is given in .

2)      The emphasis on the land. Genesis 12:7 reiterates the land promise. In Genesis 13:5 God expanded this to “all the land that you can see.” In Genesis 15:18 He gives the boundaries, from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates. Genesis 17:8 defines it as “the whole land of Canaan.” God gives that title deed, their foundation for their claim to the land.

3)      The descendants are going to be a great nation, Genesis 12:2. In Genesis 13:16 they would be described as numerous as the dust of the earth. In Genesis 15:5, like the stars in the sky. In Genesis 16 the descendants would be innumerable. In Genesis 17, a multitude of nations. “Kings shall be descended from you.” That is one of the reasons there is the genealogy given at the beginning of Genesis 25, these are the nations that are coming forth from Abraham as God promised. So again and again we see this promise and fulfillment. God is faithful to His Word.

4)      There is divine protection, Genesis 12:2. God will curse those who treat Abraham lightly. This is the scourge of anti-Semitism. Today we see ant-Semitism in a new guise, that rather than having hatred towards Jews individually they guise of anti-Semitism today is against Jews having a right to the land today. This is an extremely subtle form of anti-Semitism.

5)      In chapter fourteen there was a warning to Abraham that there would be a future slavery but there would be deliverance. In chapter 17:7 God reminded him that this was an eternal covenant, there would be no change.

Abrahamic Promises

Abrahamic Covenant and these unconditional promises that God gave to Abraham.  RD/Heb/179b

   1. First and foremost, He promised Abraham that through Abraham’s descendents God would develop a great nation - that many nations actually would come from Abraham.  This is ultimately fulfilled.  The nation that is specified is actually Israel; but other nations came from him through Ishmael and through his grandson Esau.  You have a large segment of the Arabs in the area around (immediately surrounding) Israel: the Edomites, the Moabites (We studied them in our study on 2 Kings), the Ammonites as well as other Arab tribes.  The Ishmaelites blended in with the Midianites.  All of these different nations and ethnic groups came from the loins of Abraham  all in fulfillment of statements that God made again and again and again, Genesis 12:2 13:16, 15:5, 17: 1,2,7 and then Genesis 22:17 which it is the passage where Abraham is asked by God to sacrifice Isaac.  That's the next example that's going to be given of Abraham’s life that when God tested him so this whole idea of testing is related to inheritance and the promise.    2. So our second aspect of the Abrahamic Covenant was land described as an actual piece of real estate bordered by the Mediterranean Sea and the River Euphrates covering much of what is modern Syria, all of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and parts of modern Iraq.  All would've been included in the original land grant given by God to Abraham.  Passages in Genesis 12:7,13:14,15,17.  Genesis 15:7-21 is your key passage when the covenant is actually cut and God sacrifices the animals (cuts them in half).  Abraham falls asleep and God passes through between the halves of the animals alone indicating that is a unilateral permanent covenant and then Genesis 17:8.    3. The nation promise relates to seed although that specifically is going to be fulfilled in the individual of the Lord Jesus Christ.  That whole idea of promising descendents (promising a seed) must be traced back to Genesis 3:15 when God said that the seed of the woman would step on the head of the seed of the serpent and tracing that idea of seed all the way through Genesis.  The first provision is seed; second land and the third had to do with blessing. Abraham himself was to be blessed by God and was to be a blessing to those around him.  This went into effect immediately as he during his life engaged in various activities that benefitted those around him, Genesis 12:2, 15:6, 22:15-7.    4. God said that He would make Abraham’s name great in 12:2.  That is specifically in contrast in light of what we studied on Tuesday night with the Tower of Babel incident in the Plain of Shinar.  Why did they build the Tower of Babel in the Plain of Shinar?  They did it because they wanted to make their name great.  So in contrast to the kingdom of man that wants to assert itself and make itself great, you have God saying to Abraham that if he will walk humbly in obedience with God, God promises to make his name great.    5. Those who bless Abraham’s descendents (I think I got a phone call right in the middle of editing that point.)  Those who bless Abraham’s descendants will be blessed.  Those who bless Abraham and his descendants rather will be blessed.

NKJ Genesis 12:3 I will bless those who bless you…

This is the basis for believers treating Jews well and treating Israel well and supporting Israel – not because we believe that everything that they do is right or that everything that the Jewish nation that every decision is right.  And if we disagree with national policies of Israel, it doesn't necessarily mean that one is anti-Semitic are going against Israel.  It may mean that one has good sense and can think objectively.  But that always confuses people when we get into this particular area.

One of the things that has developed over the last ten years is the attempt by the liberal political left to try to create distrust between what is perceived as a power block that is the evangelical right and the evangelical support for Israel. So the seeds of distrust have been a sewn (or attempted to be sewn) among Jews by constantly stating these myths that the only reason those evangelicals want to support you is because they want to get all the Jews back into the land so that Jesus will come back and when Jesus comes back there's going to be the Battle of Armageddon and all the Jews will be killed.

“See, so the only reason they want to support Israel is so that all the Jews will get killed.”

This has been going on for about ten years.  Last year when I went to the AIPAC convention in Washington, that was one of the things that was addressed in a breakout session dealing with the topic of how to understand our evangelical allies.  It was handled very well by the panel that was there and there were a number of rabbis that got up during the question and answer session and said that they had tremendous opportunities (some of them) to speak in evangelical churches and they had worked with evangelicals in joint projects many times.  So they were saying that none of this is true.  This is not an accurate statement.

One lady on the panel said that to be perfectly honest the only reason or the main reason that evangelicals won the support of Israel and support Jews is because in Genesis 12:3 God promised blessing for those who blessed Israel and they just want to be blessed by God.  Everyone got a good chuckle out of that.

   6. There is also the reverse promise.  Those who curse Israel or curse the Jews (those who are antagonistic to Israel) will be cursed.  There's a different word used in Hebrew even though both words are translated curse.   The first word has to do with treating somebody lightly, not treating them with disrespect.  It’s not a harsh word at all.  It’s a rather light word.  Those who treat you lightly, those who treat you in a cavalier manner.  Then the second word for curse conveys the idea of a harsh judgment.  In other words those who do not respect you or treat you with respect will be harshly judged.  So that is a very, very strong statement in terms of anti-Semitism.    7. God promises that through Abraham all nations, all people will be blessed.  That is ultimately fulfilled through the Lord Jesus Christ who is the Savior of all men.  It's not limited atonement; it is unlimited atonement.  Jesus died for everybody.  The only reason that all are not saved is because there are many who choose to reject Christ and not believe in Him or they never want to know anything about God in terms of negative volition at God consciousness.  So they are never saved, but their sins have been paid for by Christ on the cross.    8. There’s a specific promise that Sarah will have a son.  This isn’t some sort of abstract thing in the distance or it’s not going to come about through some sort of surrogate.  That's what we had with Hagar ,was one of the original attempts of surrogate pregnancy.  So Sarah will have a son.  It's not going to be through some other wife.  This is promised in Genesis 15:1-4 and 17:15-21.    9. God promised Abraham that there would be a bondage of about 400 years that they would not be in the land and that they would be in slavery.  That was fulfilled in the Egyptian bondage.  That was promised in Genesis 15:13-15.   10. Other nations would come from Abraham in 17:3-6.  That’s fulfilled in the Arab states.   11. There was a change of name from Abram to Abraham, Abram meaning exalted father which could've referred to Abraham’s own father (tendency of fathers to name their sons names that would reflect positively upon them.)  So Abraham could have been named by Tara to reflect upon his own exaltation.  Abraham sounds like the Hebrew words of a father of a multitude.  There is often the play on words, puns, paronomasias what ever you want to call them in Hebrew.  The names don't exactly mean that but they sound like the words that mean that.   12. Sarai’s name is also changed from Sarai which simply means princes to the princess.  That little change in the ending changes the significance of the word and that makes it of broader significance, 17:15.   13. Then the 13th point is that there was a specific sign of the Abrahamic Covenant and that was circumcision.  The Noahic Covenant had a sign that was the rainbow.  The Abrahamic Covenant had a sign which is circumcision, and the Mosaic Covenant had a sign which was the Sabbath.  Not every covenant had a sign, but those three did.

Abraham's 13 Test

The 13 tests of Abraham’s life RD/Gen/113

‎The first test was to go to a new land and to leave the family behind. To understand the tests we have to go back and understand the framework, the Abrahamic covenant. The positional promises that God gave Abraham are reduced to three: land, seed, and blessing. The tests all relate to one of those three promises. In terms of our position in Christ, how many aspects are there to that positional grace provision? We have all learned that God gave us forty things. That is our positional reality—all those things that God did for us, that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, which is a lot more than forty. So the tests that we encounter are going to be tests related to understanding what God gave us at the instant of salvation, because those are our eternal possessions that can never be taken away from us. So just as God tested Abraham with regard to the three components of that promise—land, seed, and blessing—we are going to get testing in relationship to understanding all of the dynamics of the Christian life in terms of what God has done for us in adopting us into the royal family, and all the aspects related to salvation—redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, aspects related to the Holy Spirit, His indwelling, baptism, sealing, filling, plus the fact that we are also indwelled by Jesus Christ, all these things. That is what we are going to be tested on. So that means that before we have the test we are supposed to acquire the knowledge. We learn in first and then apply it.

‎ 

‎So the first test is to go to a new land. Is he really going to trust God to provide for him in the geographical place that God has provided for him. We know that he was a little hesitant in trusting God at first, so he goes to Haran first and is there for probably fifteen years or more, and then he moves on to the land finally.

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‎Then he gets (second) tested in relation to the land. , “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto your seed will I give this land: and there built he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.” This is after he arrives in the land, and this is the second statement of the land promise. Is he going to trust God and stay in the land when the famine comes, or is he going to try to solve the problem on his own? He tried to solve the problem on his own, which is what you and I do. Abraham is down in Egypt and out of fellowship, and God is just multiplying his wealth! When he finally leaves Egypt he is wealthy, even though he has failed in his spiritual test, but he has picked up certain things that will be the basis for further tests. That is just what happens with us. But Abraham and Lot become so wealthy that when they get back to the land, which has a famine problem, the land which God has promised him can’t support them. So now there is going to be this family rivalry.

‎ 

‎We often have all kinds of tests in life. We have tests of things that are just inconvenient, we have to deal with people who are just not doing the job the way they should, we have to deal with bureaucracies and systems, we have health testing, financial testing, testing in the area of grief or loss, weather disasters—all of these things that can happen, and we have to decide how we are going to respond to each one. The issue there is always how we are going to choose to handle the situation. We can either handle it through human viewpoint or we trust the Lord, so that the foundation of all of our problem-solving is really the faith-rest drill, and that leads to the use of one of the ten problem-solving devices. That is divine viewpoint. If we go to human viewpoint we just forget trust, forget faith-rest drill, and we operate on human viewpoint. We work out really good rationalizations for what we are doing. It sounds good, and it may have a lot of truth in it. In Job, if you look at the statements made by Eliphaz and by Bildad and by Zophar there are a lot of things that they say that are right, but their structure is wrong, their framework is wrong. That is why it is so important to have a framework of biblical doctrine because even though you have components within your framework that are true if they are not put together in the right structure the structure is not going to hold weight. There are verses in Job that can be pulled out and we say it is a great statement, it is true. But of you look at the context he has positioned it within a faulty argument. In a case like that a person is mixing truth with error. And that is what we all do. We rationalize, we justify. For example, Abraham when he told Abimelech Sarah was his sister: “My life is going to be threatened here, I have to protect myself, don’t I?” That was his rationale. It is just human viewpoint trying to solve life’s problems without really trusting God. So we develop the strategies that get very complex to protect ourselves from perceived danger, loss, whatever we think that the threat is; and they all just come out of our sin nature. We see that Abraham has to go through this process because in the early stages here he is half obeying and half failing. But in that incremental stage he learns a little bit more each time about the trustworthiness of God.

‎ 

‎This is really illustrated in Lot because Lot is so arrogant that all he can focus on is the temporal reality. Abraham, when he comes to the third test when Lot’s servants and his servants are fighting against each other and he says that the land is too small to support both of them, Abraham has learned from the previous test. The previous test he flunked. He didn’t respond by trusting God (no faith-rest drill); he didn’t respond by grace orientation. He didn’t recognize that God had graciously given him the land therefore God would graciously provide for him in the land even though there was a famine. Now he is back in the land and he still has a famine problem, and now he has a people-testing problem because Lot and his servants are causing problems, but Lot is totally self-absorbed and he is focusing on temporal reality. Abraham has learned to be gracious, so he says take your pick of the land. Lot is willing to sacrifice his whole spiritual life so that he can live in the right place, and he wanted to be there because that’s where the entertainment was, where the action was, and where the city life of his day was. So he is going to justify it in his mind and that leads to self-deception where he is completely divorced from reality. We really saw that picture when judgment eventually came on Sodom because his wife just doesn’t want to leave. She looks back, she just can’t pull herself back from all the carnality and all the attractions of the cosmic system. So God judges her for that.

‎ 

‎We learned about the arrogance skills and the whole cycle from self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-justification, self-deception to self-deification where we become our own god. That is the same process that is illustrated in Romans chapter one, and if we don’t break this cycle through confession of sin and humility, realizing what God has done for us and humbling ourselves through the mighty hand of God——then we are just going to continue to deteriorate until our lives just fragment, and then we get the natural consequences intensified by divine discipline.

‎ 

‎So the third test was the test to treat Lot with grace and generosity, and again it is related to the land. And when it is over with he passes the test God takes him aside and, at the end of chapter thirteen, and says, Walk in the land in its length and width for I give it to you. So God praises him for passing the test.

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‎Then we come to the fourth test which is related to blessing. Abraham is mandated to be a blessing to those around him. We see the invasion of the four kings. So the test is going to be related blessing and to grace orientation. Is he going to deal with his pagan neighbors and with stupid Lot on the basis of grace and on the basis of God’s character rather than his character? He passed that test and demonstrated that he can be a blessing to his pagan neighbors. And that is an interesting example to us, that we can be good and kind to the pagans in our environment who are completely hostile to everything that we stand for.

‎ 

‎Then the fifth test which was the test to express his gratitude to God. That is when he returned to Salem and he meets Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Melchizedek represents a royal priest, and he is going to be the type of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in this event Abraham has had a victory and so gets to express his gratitude to God and does so by giving the tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek as an offering of gratitude to God for what He has done. He also refuses to take anything from the king of Sodom because he wants to make it very clear that his victory and his involvement in the battle was related to his obedience to God and he didn’t have anything to do with the perverts in Sodom.

‎ 

‎The sixth test in chapter fifteen is again related to the seed. It has been some time now since God promised Abraham descendants, and it hasn’t happened yet.

‎Abraham was apparently beginning to worry about this a little bit, so God comes along in chapter fifteen and He gives him a command. That is how we know it was a

‎Test. When there is a command then there is a test related to obedience to the command. , “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward.” It is in this chapter that He makes it clear that the descendant will come from his own body, it won’t be through his servant. The covenant is cut at this point.

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‎The next (seventh) test is related to the seed again, in chapter sixteen. This time it is, Are we going to trust God to provide the seed through Abraham and Sarah or are we going to try to make another human viewpoint end run? This was the incident with Hagar resulting in the birth of Ishmael who becomes the father of a certain segment of Arab tribes, and this is where the whole Arab-Israeli conflict had its beginning. So he fails that test. Rather than sticking with it, persevering, and trusting in God no matter how impossible it seemed that Sarah could have a child, he gave in to human viewpoint rationalization.

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‎Then we have another (eight) test related to the seed in chapter seventeen. Here the covenant is reconfirmed, but now a sign is going to be given of the covenant, the sign of circumcision. This is going to be a picture of sanctification, the removal of the influence of the flesh, the sin nature. He trusts God and he and all those in his household are circumcised. Again, God reconfirms the covenant with him and He states in addition that it is going to be with Sarah and that He will establish the covenant with his son, Isaac. So the contract is expanded even further.

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‎A ninth test comes in chapter eighteen and again this relates to blessing. Three visitors show up. One is the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ and the other two are

‎angels. He is very hospitable to his visitors and so he passes the grace orientation test.

Another (tenth) test in the chapter follows and this is again a test of grace orientation. God is going to take Abraham into His confidence and tell him that He is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. That is where Lot lives and so it is a test to see if Abraham is going to exercise impersonal love towards Lot. But Abraham passed the test, he has functioned honorably, he has passed the test of being a blessing to his undeserving neighbors and relatives, and he has dealt with them in grace.

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‎The eleventh test occurs in Genesis chapter twenty, and again it relates to the seed. How is he going to protect the seed? Is he going to continue to trust God? Sarah

‎still isn’t pregnant, so now they go to live in Philistia, in Gerar, and Abraham lies about Sarah being his wife again. Why? Because he is afraid for his life. Rather than

‎trusting God he is afraid somebody is going to kill him and take Sarah for his wife. So he fails the test, but he is learning. He is learning that God is the one who is going

‎to protect him, and no matter what that seed is coming, the child is going to be born through Sarah, and in chapter 21 Isaac is born.

And again there is a (twelve) test to protect the seed. Now there would be the threat of rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael and Hagar are sent away to protect the inheritance and the seed.

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‎Abraham’s (thirteenth test) final exam is in chapter twenty-two where God tells him to take Isaac the promised son to Mount Moriah and to sacrifice him. So again it is a test related to the seed, it is a test related to the faith-rest drill, and it is a test related to his personal love for God. Is the promise of God more real to him than his circumstances?

‎Does he love God so much that he will do anything that God asks him to do, even it means to take the life of his cherished son he had waited for for so long. He reasons

‎though, based on Hebrews eleven, that because God had promised that he was going to have a multitude of descendants through Isaac, therefore God, who has always been true to His Word, must be true to this word. Even if he killed Isaac God could bring him back to life, so that was what he thought God was going to do. So he

‎never gives it a second thought, he takes Isaac to Moriah, lays him out on the altar, comes to the point where he is going to kill Isaac. God stops him, and he has

‎demonstrated that he is trusting God no matter what. And God provided a substitute, a perfect picture of salvation, that Jesus Christ is our substitute.

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‎Abraham passes these tests, according to , because he had a future focus. The reality of God’s plan for him in the future was greater than his present circumstances. And that is the challenge to us, to grow to that point where no matter what is going on in our life this is only temporary, it is only this world. It is a future world that He has prepared for us that He is preparing us for, and we have to go through these tests just as Abraham did and every other believer does in order to have the capacity to properly function in terms of the responsibility and the privileges that God is going to give us to reign as kings and priests in the Millennial kingdom.

‎Abraham pictures that.

Abraham's Test

Abraham's Test   RD/Heb/179b

  1. So Abraham’s first test was the test to obey God and go to a new land and leave the family behind.  That's the Genesis 12:1-9.  This is the first thing that the writer of Hebrews mentions back in Hebrews 11:8.

NKJ Hebrews 11:8 By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.

The last thing he mentions in relationship to Abraham is in verse 17:

NKJ Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son,

So what I’m going to cover in these thirteen points is what fills out what else happened between the first event and the 13th event.  So the first test was to go to a new land, leave the family behind; and it was only partial obedience.  Remember, he took his nephew with him and his father with him.  He doesn't leave the whole family behind.  He takes them with him.  He goes to Haran up in the northern part of Syria now; and he stays there for probably ten or fifteen years until his father dies.  Even then he doesn't drop off Lot.  He takes him with him and what happens?  That creates a problem.  We get into Genesis 13 and Lot’s herdsmen are having battles with Abraham’s herdsmen.  There is all this family conflict that comes along because whenever you try to solve the problems in your life with human viewpoint, what happens is you create new problems because human viewpoint never works.

NKJ Proverbs 14:12 There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

So human viewpoint may provide a seemingly temporary solution, but it's going to exacerbate the problem and unintended consequences and you're going to be faced with a new battery of problems which come as a result of those bad decisions.  If you extrapolate that to a nation when nations use bad decisions from human viewpoint to solve their problems; then all that happens is it creates a whole new series of problems and those problems make more problems until eventually the house of cards for those nations eventually collapses because it's all built on a fantasy foundation.

So Abraham has partial obedience and it sets up for future problems.

   2. Second, a test is to trust God by staying in the land.  He had orders from God to go to the land but no orders to go out of the land.  So when he got in the land he had a test because all of a sudden the land that was going to provide for him comes under this famine and drought and he decides, “Oh, I have to go solve the problem myself. I'm going to head down to Egypt.”

Now if you were anybody else in the world, it was okay to go to Egypt to get food.  But if you were Abraham it wasn't because God has given you specific revelation that He's giving you this land and the issue is are you going to trust God to provide for you in this set of circumstances?  So he failed.  He went to Egypt for food without divine authorization, decides he has to lie about his relationship to Sarah because he's afraid.  We see a really wimpy Abraham when he was younger: 50, 60, 70 years old.  But he was younger compared to how old he lived.  So it sets up other problems down the line.

   3. The third test was the test to treat Lot with grace and generosity when all the all of Lot’s employees (all of these servants) are creating problems with all of Abraham’s servants.  These guys were wealthy.  They had huge numbers of men that worked for them.  When we get to the next test later on in chapter 14 dealing with the Chedorlaomer invasion when that occurs and that group of the 5 kings sweeps through the southern part of the land of Israel around the Dead Sea and wipes out these towns, plunders everybody, kidnaps a lot of prisoners and heads north; then Abraham is going to decide to go after Lot.  But when he does so, he takes several hundred servants with him.  So he had a large operation; and Lot had a large organization.  When these two organizations begin to fight each other, this was extremely unpleasant and Abraham’s was obviously (probably) larger than Lot’s.   He was the older.  He was the one who had the primary wealth and so he could just squashed Lot like a bug; but he deals with him very graciously and generously offers him any part of the land.  This is the land that God gave to Abraham.  He didn't give it to Lot.  So he offers this to Lot.

He says, “You pick the land you want to go to.”

So Lot picked the most beautiful land, the most well-watered land - not that way today; but it’s all desert and barren.  But then it was.  So he passes this test by handling the people testing with Lot in grace and generosity, grace orientation.  He’s trusting God for the land.  God promised it to him so he is able to relax and be generous.

4.  There's a (forth) test to protect and defend his neighbors.  What was he supposed to do?  He was to be a blessing to all.  That that was a command in Genesis 12:3.  It doesn't say you be a blessing.  It’s not a description.  It is a command that he was to bless those around him.  So when the Chedorlaomer invasion occurs and they come down and they wipe out these towns and steal everything, kidnap the people and haul them off into captivity, he organizes all of his men and he goes after them.  He exercises the initiative and he defeats them and obviously he's trusting God in the midst of all of this to provide him the victory.  He defeats these kings, rescues Lot and rescues all of the plunder and all of the material goods that had been stolen and returned everything to its original owner.

5. In the process he has another (fifth) test which is to express gratitude to God.  After he has a great victory is he going to become puffed up in arrogance, think about how great he is, what a great victory he's had over this organized army or whether he's going to be humble and express gratitude to God which is what he does.  So he passes the test and he gave of that which he rescued.  He gave a portion to Melchizedek.  So he passes the test.

6.  Then the sixth test was a test to quit worrying about when God's going to provide for the seed.  God promised you a seed from your own loins.  Just relax.  It’ll happen when of God's timing comes along.  Don't push it.  So God gives him a promise at the beginning of Genesis 15 in the first verse where God says:

NKJ Genesis 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward."

There’s your promise.  What's the promise going to bring?  A reward, inheritance.  Notice the connection between those ideas.  Then it's in that chapter that God is going to cut the covenant, formally institute the covenant with Abraham by laying out the sacrifices, splitting them in two, causing a deep sleep to call on Abraham.  Then God alone passed between the sacrifices.  So Abraham passes that test.

7.  Then in the seventh test, he is going to fail.  He failed miserably with consequences that reverberate down through time.

This is when Sarah came to him and said, “You know I’m getting too old to do this baby thing, but you're still functional. Why don't you take my handmaid Hagar?”

So we have another human viewpoint solution which always generates more problems.  We still are faced with the problem of the Arabs and the whole Arab-Israeli conflict.  So he failed.  He listened to Sarah; but later there is spiritual growth on Sarah’s part.  That's what we come to in the next couple of verses in Hebrews 11.

Hebrews 11 we see the evidence in Sarah.

NKJ Hebrews 11:11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.

Now isn’t that an odd phrase?  Women don't produce seed.  Men produce seed.  Women produce an egg.  But the term is used because it connects the dots of the seed terms from Genesis 3:15 all the way down to Jesus.

NKJ Hebrews 11:11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength

This is referring to the fact that God miraculously restored her physically so that she could reproduce.  He restored her reproductive organs.  And I have heard a medical doctor talk about this - all that would be involved in this because when a woman has gone through menopause and all the things that happen to the womb and the ovaries.  Everything dries up and it doesn't produce eggs anymore; and everything in shot.  What is necessary for God to do in order to enable her to be pregnant is miraculous.  He’s has got to bring all of that, all those mechanisms back to life and restore them.  And it's much more than “poof” you’re pregnant.  There's a whole thing that has to be restored there because the dried up womb can no longer stretch in order to provide for the growth of the baby inside.  So, all that has to be changed.  It’s just a great picture of how God can bring life where there's death.  All of these ideas point towards what God can do spiritually in terms of regeneration and bringing spiritual life where there is spiritual death.

NKJ Hebrews 11:11 By faith Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child when she was past the age, because she judged Him faithful who had promised.

So she is trusting in the character of God and focusing on the promise that He had made to Abraham and that God would fulfill that particular promise.  That takes us back to Genesis 17:16-19.  This is where God is speaking to Abraham, telling him that the seed is going to come through Sarah.

In verses 16 and 17 God said:

NKJ Genesis 17:16 "And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her."

NKJ Genesis 17:17 Then Abraham fell on his face and laughed,

He’s not laughing because he doesn't believe God.  He's laughing from joy.

and said in his heart,

There's a little skepticism there.

"Shall a child be born to a man who is one hundred years old? And shall Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?"

Can this really happen?  He's not really doubting God.  It’s beyond his comprehension.

In verse 19 God said:

NKJ Genesis 17:19 Then God said: "No, Sarah your wife shall bear you a son, and you shall call his name Isaac;

Meaning laughter.

I will establish My covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his descendants after him.

So that goes on. The Abrahamic Covenant is going to be reiterated several times in Genesis in terms of Isaac, in terms of Jacob, in terms of Joseph as well.

Then in Genesis 21:1-3 we have the immediate event of the birth described.

NKJ Genesis 21:1 And the LORD visited Sarah as He had said,

This is the backdrop for what we understand in Hebrews 11:11.  The Lord visited Sarah as he had said.

and the LORD did for Sarah as He had spoken.

The promise is fulfilled precisely, not just generally, not just in some sort of vague spiritualized sense.  But literally and physically there is a birth.

NKJ Genesis 21:2 For Sarah conceived

She's been strengthened.

and bore Abraham a son in his old age, at the set time of which God had spoken to him.

 See the whole issue was trusting God to do it in the right timing.

NKJ Genesis 21:3 And Abraham called the name of his son who was born to him -- whom Sarah bore to him -- Isaac.

So that's the fulfillment.  So Hebrews 11 is not just focusing on Abraham and his faith; but also Sarah’s faith, that she grew spiritually through these tests as well, specifically related to the promises of land, seed and blessing that God had outlined in the Abrahamic Covenant.

8.       The 8th test was a test to be circumcised. I'm not going to go into descriptive details, here but when you're about 90 ninety years old and you don't have anesthesia this is not something I am sure Abraham looked forward to.  This was described in Genesis 17:1-25 and Abraham passed the test.

9.       Then the 9th test was a test of hospitality to his visitors in Genesis 18.  In the first 15 verses the three strangers come to Abraham’s tent.  He sees them coming and the test is how's he going to respond to strangers.  He's going to respond to them out of grace and generosity and hospitality.  He wants them to come in, rest, relax, and take a nap.  He goes out and physically finds the calf that he is going to cook for dinner.  He doesn't go down to HEB or Rice Epicurean or Central Market and pick up a to-go meal or call Pappadeaux’s.  He goes out to the field, gets the calf or bullock, brings it in, slaughters it, skins it, butchers it, comes and prepares a meal from scratch.  This is going to take several hours.  Those of you who've been deer hunting and you’re your own butchering you know what I'm talking about.  It doesn't happen quickly.  So they’re there for quite a while and he is going to give them the best that he can.  He is going to be generous with them.  This shows his grace orientation to those visitors and in the course of that time he will discover, God will allow him to see, that it is the angel of the Lord  (One of them is the pre-incarnate lord Jesus Christ.  The other two are angels.

10.   So as he discovers that, Then he has another (tenth) test.  What is she going to do now and ask for when he has the Lord sitting at dinner?  What would you ask for if the Lord was sitting at dinner?

“Well, Lord I want to make sure my job stays, I don't get laid off.  Why don't you cure me of this or cure me of that?”

We often fall back on a self centered response.  But that's not Abraham.  He’s passing the test.  He is oriented towards others and so his question is – what are you all doing?  He finds out the two angels are going to go off to judge and destroy Sodom.

So he says, “Well Lord, would you destroy the city if there were twenty righteous men there?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, if there were ten?

He works it down and he’s building a case with God.  This is has implications for prayer life, building a Rationale based on doctrine, based on grace on the basis of which he can present a case to deliver Lot and his family.  So he shows grace orientation to Lot who had done nothing to deserve it; and he shows his impersonal love toward Lot and he focuses on Lot’s deliverance even though he's living down there in sin city Sodom.

11.   Then in point 11, the test to protect the seed during his visit to Gerar.  This is the land of the Philistines, the area along the coast there, the Gaza Strip today.  He goes there and once again he pulls the same stunt.  So we have patterns.  You just keep committing the same sins you ever did.  Don't get self righteous with Abraham just because it’s twenty years later.  He's still trying to lie about Sarah and pass her off as his sister.   We all have the same patterns of sin in our life and we keep failing again and again and again.  But God deals with us in grace.  So he tries to pass off Sarah, and he fails this test.   But God intervenes to protect the seed to make sure that no one gets the idea that it was someone other than Abraham who's the father of the soon to be born Isaac.

12.   Then the 12th test was to protect the heir.  Now that Isaac’s born, what are we going to do with Ishmael and with Hagar because there's going to be jealousy and other problems in the house with these two boys jockeying for favor?  So God gives him the guidance which again through (this time) through his wife.

She says, “You know we ought to send them away.”

So he recognizes the wisdom of that and he sends Hagar and Ishmael away.  So he passes this test because he understands he has to protect the seed.  So he's finally getting the point that God is going to do what God promises He's going to do and that God has the power to control the circumstances and it's not up to us to try to manipulate the situation to get God’s promises fulfilled.  This means he finally gets it so that when God sends him to sacrifice the promised seed in Genesis 22 and to take His Son (His only Son)  and to take him to the mountains of Mariah and to sacrifice him there.

Abraham says, “Sure thing. I'm packing my bags.  We’re on the way.”

It's in Hebrews though that we come to understand when we get down to verse 19 that Abraham concluded that God was able to raise him up even from the dead from which he also received him in a figurative sense.  So the point is that Abraham clearly understood the whole Doctrine of Resurrection and knew that God could raise Isaac from the dead because He would have to in order to fulfill His promises because he finally learned God always fulfills His promises.  He never breaks His Word and you can always trust Him.

So this then is the backdrop for our study on the Hebrews 11:11-12.  This leads into the conclusion.  At this part there’s an immediate conclusion in this section, verse 13:

NKJ Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith,

Who are the “these?”  The “these” takes us back to the examples that he has talked about already: Abel, Enoch, Abraham and Sarah.  They all died in faith - Isaac and Jacob as well which he had mentioned in verse 9.   

not having received the promises,

What promises?  The land promise, the seed promise, and the ultimate fulfillment of those.

but having seen them afar off

God gave them just a tantalizing hint of what that fulfillment would be like.

were assured of them,

They were confident in God.  Faith is that confidence we have in God.

embraced them and

That is the promises.

confessed

That is admitted.

that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

They weren’t disengaged from the earth.  They were involved in commerce.  They were involved in trade.  They were involved in all kinds of things; but they still recognized that that wasn't the ultimate end.  The ultimate end has to do with the heavenly citizenship, the heavenly destiny, not the earthly destiny.

NKJ Hebrews 11:14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland.

How did they declare it?  They declared it by their obedience; by the way faith changed the way they lived.

So verse 15:

NKJ Hebrews 11:15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out,

That is Ur of the Chaldeas.

they would have had opportunity to return.

They could have gone back.  That’s what that’s saying – if they’d wanted to.  But they didn’t because they were focusing forward and not backward.

So conclusion, verse 16:

NKJ Hebrews 11:16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country.

They've had their priorities changed by the Word God.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.

So we’ll come back next time, look at a couple of ideas that are inherent in this in terms of earthly responsibilities and heavenly destiny.  Then we will press on into the next section of Abraham’s life dealing with the tests with Isaac.

Abraham's Thirteen Test

The 13 tests of Abraham’s life RD/Gen/113

‎The first test was to go to a new land and to leave the family behind. To understand the tests we have to go back and understand the framework, the Abrahamic covenant. The positional promises that God gave Abraham are reduced to three: land, seed, and blessing. The tests all relate to one of those three promises. In terms of our position in Christ, how many aspects are there to that positional grace provision? We have all learned that God gave us forty things. That is our positional reality—all those things that God did for us, that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies, which is a lot more than forty. So the tests that we encounter are going to be tests related to understanding what God gave us at the instant of salvation, because those are our eternal possessions that can never be taken away from us. So just as God tested Abraham with regard to the three components of that promise—land, seed, and blessing—we are going to get testing in relationship to understanding all of the dynamics of the Christian life in terms of what God has done for us in adopting us into the royal family, and all the aspects related to salvation—redemption, propitiation, reconciliation, aspects related to the Holy Spirit, His indwelling, baptism, sealing, filling, plus the fact that we are also indwelled by Jesus Christ, all these things. That is what we are going to be tested on. So that means that before we have the test we are supposed to acquire the knowledge. We learn in first and then apply it.

‎ 

‎So the first test is to go to a new land. Is he really going to trust God to provide for him in the geographical place that God has provided for him. We know that he was a little hesitant in trusting God at first, so he goes to Haran first and is there for probably fifteen years or more, and then he moves on to the land finally.

‎ 

‎Then he gets (second) tested in relation to the land. , “And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto your seed will I give this land: and there built he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him.” This is after he arrives in the land, and this is the second statement of the land promise. Is he going to trust God and stay in the land when the famine comes, or is he going to try to solve the problem on his own? He tried to solve the problem on his own, which is what you and I do. Abraham is down in Egypt and out of fellowship, and God is just multiplying his wealth! When he finally leaves Egypt he is wealthy, even though he has failed in his spiritual test, but he has picked up certain things that will be the basis for further tests. That is just what happens with us. But Abraham and Lot become so wealthy that when they get back to the land, which has a famine problem, the land which God has promised him can’t support them. So now there is going to be this family rivalry.

‎ 

‎We often have all kinds of tests in life. We have tests of things that are just inconvenient, we have to deal with people who are just not doing the job the way they should, we have to deal with bureaucracies and systems, we have health testing, financial testing, testing in the area of grief or loss, weather disasters—all of these things that can happen, and we have to decide how we are going to respond to each one. The issue there is always how we are going to choose to handle the situation. We can either handle it through human viewpoint or we trust the Lord, so that the foundation of all of our problem-solving is really the faith-rest drill, and that leads to the use of one of the ten problem-solving devices. That is divine viewpoint. If we go to human viewpoint we just forget trust, forget faith-rest drill, and we operate on human viewpoint. We work out really good rationalizations for what we are doing. It sounds good, and it may have a lot of truth in it. In Job, if you look at the statements made by Eliphaz and by Bildad and by Zophar there are a lot of things that they say that are right, but their structure is wrong, their framework is wrong. That is why it is so important to have a framework of biblical doctrine because even though you have components within your framework that are true if they are not put together in the right structure the structure is not going to hold weight. There are verses in Job that can be pulled out and we say it is a great statement, it is true. But of you look at the context he has positioned it within a faulty argument. In a case like that a person is mixing truth with error. And that is what we all do. We rationalize, we justify. For example, Abraham when he told Abimelech Sarah was his sister: “My life is going to be threatened here, I have to protect myself, don’t I?” That was his rationale. It is just human viewpoint trying to solve life’s problems without really trusting God. So we develop the strategies that get very complex to protect ourselves from perceived danger, loss, whatever we think that the threat is; and they all just come out of our sin nature. We see that Abraham has to go through this process because in the early stages here he is half obeying and half failing. But in that incremental stage he learns a little bit more each time about the trustworthiness of God.

‎ 

‎This is really illustrated in Lot because Lot is so arrogant that all he can focus on is the temporal reality. Abraham, when he comes to the third test when Lot’s servants and his servants are fighting against each other and he says that the land is too small to support both of them, Abraham has learned from the previous test. The previous test he flunked. He didn’t respond by trusting God (no faith-rest drill); he didn’t respond by grace orientation. He didn’t recognize that God had graciously given him the land therefore God would graciously provide for him in the land even though there was a famine. Now he is back in the land and he still has a famine problem, and now he has a people-testing problem because Lot and his servants are causing problems, but Lot is totally self-absorbed and he is focusing on temporal reality. Abraham has learned to be gracious, so he says take your pick of the land. Lot is willing to sacrifice his whole spiritual life so that he can live in the right place, and he wanted to be there because that’s where the entertainment was, where the action was, and where the city life of his day was. So he is going to justify it in his mind and that leads to self-deception where he is completely divorced from reality. We really saw that picture when judgment eventually came on Sodom because his wife just doesn’t want to leave. She looks back, she just can’t pull herself back from all the carnality and all the attractions of the cosmic system. So God judges her for that.

‎ 

‎We learned about the arrogance skills and the whole cycle from self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-justification, self-deception to self-deification where we become our own god. That is the same process that is illustrated in Romans chapter one, and if we don’t break this cycle through confession of sin and humility, realizing what God has done for us and humbling ourselves through the mighty hand of God——then we are just going to continue to deteriorate until our lives just fragment, and then we get the natural consequences intensified by divine discipline.

‎ 

‎So the third test was the test to treat Lot with grace and generosity, and again it is related to the land. And when it is over with he passes the test God takes him aside and, at the end of chapter thirteen, and says, Walk in the land in its length and width for I give it to you. So God praises him for passing the test.

‎ 

‎Then we come to the fourth test which is related to blessing. Abraham is mandated to be a blessing to those around him. We see the invasion of the four kings. So the test is going to be related blessing and to grace orientation. Is he going to deal with his pagan neighbors and with stupid Lot on the basis of grace and on the basis of God’s character rather than his character? He passed that test and demonstrated that he can be a blessing to his pagan neighbors. And that is an interesting example to us, that we can be good and kind to the pagans in our environment who are completely hostile to everything that we stand for.

‎ 

‎Then the fifth test which was the test to express his gratitude to God. That is when he returned to Salem and he meets Melchizedek, the king of Salem. Melchizedek represents a royal priest, and he is going to be the type of the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ. But in this event Abraham has had a victory and so gets to express his gratitude to God and does so by giving the tenth of the spoils to Melchizedek as an offering of gratitude to God for what He has done. He also refuses to take anything from the king of Sodom because he wants to make it very clear that his victory and his involvement in the battle was related to his obedience to God and he didn’t have anything to do with the perverts in Sodom.

‎ 

‎The sixth test in chapter fifteen is again related to the seed. It has been some time now since God promised Abraham descendants, and it hasn’t happened yet.

‎Abraham was apparently beginning to worry about this a little bit, so God comes along in chapter fifteen and He gives him a command. That is how we know it was a

‎Test. When there is a command then there is a test related to obedience to the command. , “After these things the word of the LORD came unto Abram in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am your shield, and your exceeding great reward.” It is in this chapter that He makes it clear that the descendant will come from his own body, it won’t be through his servant. The covenant is cut at this point.

‎ 

‎The next (seventh) test is related to the seed again, in chapter sixteen. This time it is, Are we going to trust God to provide the seed through Abraham and Sarah or are we going to try to make another human viewpoint end run? This was the incident with Hagar resulting in the birth of Ishmael who becomes the father of a certain segment of Arab tribes, and this is where the whole Arab-Israeli conflict had its beginning. So he fails that test. Rather than sticking with it, persevering, and trusting in God no matter how impossible it seemed that Sarah could have a child, he gave in to human viewpoint rationalization.

‎ 

‎Then we have another (eight) test related to the seed in chapter seventeen. Here the covenant is reconfirmed, but now a sign is going to be given of the covenant, the sign of circumcision. This is going to be a picture of sanctification, the removal of the influence of the flesh, the sin nature. He trusts God and he and all those in his household are circumcised. Again, God reconfirms the covenant with him and He states in addition that it is going to be with Sarah and that He will establish the covenant with his son, Isaac. So the contract is expanded even further.

‎ 

‎A ninth test comes in chapter eighteen and again this relates to blessing. Three visitors show up. One is the pre-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ and the other two are

‎angels. He is very hospitable to his visitors and so he passes the grace orientation test.

Another (tenth) test in the chapter follows and this is again a test of grace orientation. God is going to take Abraham into His confidence and tell him that He is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain. That is where Lot lives and so it is a test to see if Abraham is going to exercise impersonal love towards Lot. But Abraham passed the test, he has functioned honorably, he has passed the test of being a blessing to his undeserving neighbors and relatives, and he has dealt with them in grace.

‎ 

‎The eleventh test occurs in Genesis chapter twenty, and again it relates to the seed. How is he going to protect the seed? Is he going to continue to trust God? Sarah

‎still isn’t pregnant, so now they go to live in Philistia, in Gerar, and Abraham lies about Sarah being his wife again. Why? Because he is afraid for his life. Rather than

‎trusting God he is afraid somebody is going to kill him and take Sarah for his wife. So he fails the test, but he is learning. He is learning that God is the one who is going

‎to protect him, and no matter what that seed is coming, the child is going to be born through Sarah, and in chapter 21 Isaac is born.

And again there is a (twelve) test to protect the seed. Now there would be the threat of rivalry between Ishmael and Isaac. Ishmael and Hagar are sent away to protect the inheritance and the seed.

‎ 

‎Abraham’s (thirteenth test) final exam is in chapter twenty-two where God tells him to take Isaac the promised son to Mount Moriah and to sacrifice him. So again it is a test related to the seed, it is a test related to the faith-rest drill, and it is a test related to his personal love for God. Is the promise of God more real to him than his circumstances?

‎Does he love God so much that he will do anything that God asks him to do, even it means to take the life of his cherished son he had waited for for so long. He reasons

‎though, based on Hebrews eleven, that because God had promised that he was going to have a multitude of descendants through Isaac, therefore God, who has always been true to His Word, must be true to this word. Even if he killed Isaac God could bring him back to life, so that was what he thought God was going to do. So he

‎never gives it a second thought, he takes Isaac to Moriah, lays him out on the altar, comes to the point where he is going to kill Isaac. God stops him, and he has

‎demonstrated that he is trusting God no matter what. And God provided a substitute, a perfect picture of salvation, that Jesus Christ is our substitute.

‎ 

‎Abraham passes these tests, according to , because he had a future focus. The reality of God’s plan for him in the future was greater than his present circumstances. And that is the challenge to us, to grow to that point where no matter what is going on in our life this is only temporary, it is only this world. It is a future world that He has prepared for us that He is preparing us for, and we have to go through these tests just as Abraham did and every other believer does in order to have the capacity to properly function in terms of the responsibility and the privileges that God is going to give us to reign as kings and priests in the Millennial kingdom.

‎Abraham pictures that.

Adversity

 Externally we come under adversity or outside pressure from three sources. RD/James/018

First of all, living in the cosmic system. This comes from the Greek word KOSMOS [kosmoj] which had to do with a very orderly system. The root word is that from which we get the English word “cosmetic.” The head of the cosmic system is Satan. So the cosmic system promotes all of Satan’s values and ideals, and Satan’s systems are not always what we think of in terms of malignant evil. Perhaps Satan’s greatest tool is religion and morality, because nothing distracts people further from the truth of God’s Word than these two. Religion and morality emphasize human merit. It is the idea that man does the work and then God blesses. World religions are various systems that seek to promote human ability, effort and good in such a way that God is impressed with human sincerity and all of the various things that man can do through religious activity—ritual, giving, prayer, etc. People think that they are going to somehow impress God and gain His approval or approbation. This cosmic system, then, is the entire system of Satan’s rule on planet earth. Right now we know from the Scriptures that he is the prince of the power of the air and that he is the god of this age and the ruler of this age. The cosmic system is that which Satan promotes to try to gain control of planet earth.

Secondly, we go one step further from the cosmic system and we have to deal with unbelievers and carnal believers who are operating on human viewpoint and cosmic ideologies. Because they are making decisions based on socialism, communism, atheism, Gnosticism, and any and all kind of other isms that are contrary to God’s Word, that we are going to feel the backlash of all sorts of human viewpoint systems in our life because they have made bad decisions based on human viewpoint.

Third, because we live with and in close association with carnal believers, and they are going to be under divine discipline, we are going to undergo a certain amount of adversity simply because God is disciplining them we will come under a certain amount of suffering by association and overflow suffering.

Fourth, if you live in a nation that is under divine discipline then you will also undergo a certain amount of adversity and trouble that has nothing to do with your own personal behaviour. All of this relates to outside pressure, adversity or tests which provide an opportunity to choose to apply Bible doctrine.

How do we as believers persist in the midst of testing? Example: Matthew 4:1. This was at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry, immediately after is baptism. NASB “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted [tested] by the devil.” When we are tested our testing comes from one of three sources: a) Satan. He is the enemy of God and is in opposition to everything God is planning to do on earth and all of God’s plans for redeeming mankind, and he is the enemy of every single believer. He is not omniscient and cannot run around chasing every believer but in terms of Satan as the head of an entire array of demons who are carrying out his tasks, part of which is to destroy the witness of believers in the church age and the angelic conflict—in some sense that might be true, although we attribute a tremendous amount to Satan that is just the result of people’s sin natures. The sin nature that we possess is capable of the same quality of evil that Satan’s and the demons’ is capable of. Sin is sinful, highly evil and wicked. There is no difference in quality between the depravity of a human sin nature and the angelic sin nature. The only difference is that the angelic creatures have much more power and capability than we have, so they are able to do a lot more than any human being is capable of doing. Satan uses the world system to create all sorts of rationales and arguments to convince people that human viewpoint provides the best solution, that God’s solution is difficult and is not necessary, and that it (doctrine) doesn’t work; b) the greatest problems of all is not one of the two external enemies, it is the internal traitor that we have, the enemy behind the lines, the covert spy, i.e. our own sin nature, the flesh. This is the most dangerous. We have this terrible enemy within that is constantly tempting us. It is not a sin to be tempted, incidentally. As long as we are positive to doctrine and are applying doctrine you can easily resist the temptation, the bait that is set by the sin nature. But the minute we begin to find it attractive and to put our focus on that bait (as Eve looked at the fruit) and decide to sin, it is at that point of using our volition that causes us to sin.

Jesus is led up by the Spirit to be tested by the devil, the # 1 enemy. Jesus has the high commander of the enemy forces paying particular attention to Him. This is a time when Jesus was physically weak, He had been without food for forty days. Satan appeals to Him to solve His problem of hunger in an illegitimate way, to use His power apart from God’s plan. NASB But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’” Jesus focuses back on doctrine and He rebuts the temptation by using Scripture and applying doctrine. So if we are going to not succumb to temptation, if we are going to resist, if we are going to persist and endure in times of testing, then we do it by means of the Word of God. That is our power through God the Holy Spirit. Under the filling of the Holy Spirit Jesus is led to the wilderness, and under the filling of the Holy Spirit He is utilizing the Word of God as His defensive weapon. Just as the RHEMA [r(hma], the spoken Word is the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians chapter six; that is how it is used, it is a defensive weapon to parry the thrusts of the enemy. It is not an offensive weapon, we do not as believers go out and engage the devil in hand-to-hand combat. We are to stand fast; we stand fast on the Word of God and we let God deal with Satan. That is what Jesus is doing here by quoting Scripture accurately.

Then in verse 5, 6, “…the devil took Him into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written, ‘HE WILL COMMAND HIS ANGELS CONCERNING YOU’; and ‘ON {their} HANDS THEY WILL BEAR YOU UP, SO THAT YOU WILL NOT STRIKE YOUR FOOT AGAINST A STONE.’” This time Satan uses Scripture but he takes it out of context and tries to use it to get the Lord to violate        His position and submission to the plan of God. Jesus’ response is once again by accurately quoting Scripture. Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”

For the third test, vv. 8-11 NASB “Again, the devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Go, Satan! For it is written, ‘YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.’” Then the devil left Him; and behold, angels came and {began} to minister to Him.” The point is that Satan is baiting a trap. There is nothing in Jesus that attracts Him to the bait (He has no sin nature), nevertheless there is a test, a temptation. Just because there is no sin nature here does not mean that Jesus is not being tempted. He is in the same position as the first Adam. Jesus was successful; Adam was a failure. The result of Adam’s sin is the entire human race sinned when Adam sinned and fell into condemnation, and the result of Jesus’ victory here is that He exemplified how the believer in the church age is to have victory in times of testing—under the filling of the Holy Spirit and through the use of the Word of God.

Adversity and Stress

Adversity and Stress  RD/James/040

1)      Adversity is the outside pressure on the soul and stress is the inside pressure.

2)      Adversity is what the circumstances of life do to you; stress is what you do to yourself.

3)      Adversity is inevitable, you cannot avoid it; stress is optional.

4)      Stress is always the result of sin nature control of the soul and failure to handle adversity or prosperity through the gracious provision of the ten stress-busters.

5)      The stress-busters allow the believer to face any situation in life and remain poised, stable, and in control of the situation no matter how horrible or agonizing, without giving in to the sin nature. When you give in to the sin nature you have stress in the soul and fragmentation.

6)      Sin nature control means arrogance and the operation of the three arrogance skills, either in overt arrogance or disguised as pseudo-humility.

The point that we are looking at is this. When you encounter the test be it adversity or prosperity you have a choice at that point. You can respond negatively and let the sin nature take over, or you can respond positively by applying one of the ten problem-solving devices or stress-busters.

Adversity: Kind of

Adversity: Kinds of    Rd/James/026

What kinds of adversities set up these tests (for us to blame God for in verse 13)?

a)      Social adversity. This could be defined in terms of the loss of social life, loss of friends, broken romance, marital problems, personality conflicts, injustice or injuries from others who we thought were our friends.

b)      Historical disaster. This would include economic recession, economic depression, warfare, diplomatic defeat, loss of establishment principles amongst the populace of the nation, loss of freedom, going through the violence of revolution, being the victim of terrorism or persecution.

c)      Criminal disaster, where you become the victim of a crime.

d)      Vilification disaster, where you become the victim of gossip, slander, maligning, judging, etc.

e)      Rejection. This may be part of social disaster where you are isolated socially, or maybe it is a business situation where you lose your job and are treated unfairly, accused of practices which are untrue, victim of prejudice, you are rejected by someone you love.

f)       Weather disasters. Hurricanes, tornados, flooding, drought, etc.

g)      Health.

h)      Death or loss of loved ones.

Algelic Conflict

The Origin of the Angelic Conflict  RD/James/070

1)      Angels were created in eternity past, perfect and sinless.

2)      Each angel was created individually, there is no angelic race. Angels are immaterial, creatures of light. But each angel was created with volition, which is the ability to choose for or against God. This was the only test the angels had in relation to eternal salvation—whether or not they would consistently be positive to God and obey God. Each angel was created with volition and at some point one of these angels, the highest of all the angels, Lucifer became arrogant and said he would make himself like the Most High. Satan’s goal is to rule the universe as God. He thinks that he can do it on his agenda, his modus operandi, just as good as God. But God is saying that the modus operandi is grace ands is built on humility and the concept of being a servant. In contrast Satan wants to operate on a works system, the essential core motivation is arrogance, and instead of being servant he wants to rule and exercise authority on his own terms. What this is showing is that Satan has an entire modus operandi that God is going to demonstrate is going to demonstrate is a complete and total failure. The only for success in life is to follow God’s grace policy and the procedures built on humility and being a servant.

3)      At that point Lucifer received a new name. The Scripture names always reveal something about the essence, character or role of the creature. His names: Lucifer meant ‘Son of the Morning,’ and that indicated that he was a creature of light, and it also indicates by implication that he was created holy. Shatan [Heb.] means adversary or one who is in opposition, the opposer. It is a legal term for a prosecutor. Diablolos [Diaboloj], which ultimately becomes “devil.” This is used 37 times in the New Testament and it means adversary, enemy, accuser, and its core meaning is to be a slanderer. Diabolos is found in Matthew 4:1; Satan is found in Matthew 4:10; Ephesians 4:27; Revelation 12:9; 20:2. He is also called the evil one, John 17:5; 1 John 5:18, 19. He is called the serpent in Genesis 3:1; the great red dragon in Revelation 12:3, 7, 9. He is called the accuser of the brethren in Revelation 12:10; 1 John 2:1, 2. He is called the tempter in Matthew 4:3; 1 Thessalonians 3:5; Acts 5:3; 1 Corinthians 7:5; because he is the one who is tempting man to disobey God. He puts thoughts into the minds of the believer. Cf. John 13:2. He is called the ruler of this world ARCHON TOU KOSMOU [a)rxon tou kosmou], John 12:31, emphasizing the fact that he is the ruler of the cosmic system. He is called the god of this world in the English translation in 2 Corinthians 4:4, but the term there is not “world,” it is AIONOS [a)iwmoj] which has a temporal concept. It is the same word as for eternity and it means age. This emphasizes that he has a temporal, finite rule over the earth from the fall of Adam until the time that he is defeated first at Armageddon and then after the Gog and Magog revolution where he is finally thrown in to the lake of fire. He is called the prince of the power of the air in Ephesians 2:2. He is called the great deceiver in Revelation 12:9. He is also called Beelzebub in Matthew 12:24, a title for Satan as the chief of demons.  

4)      Satan then appealed after the fall to the angels.  He led one third in revolt against God. Revelation 12:4.

5)      In eternity past God convened a trial in heaven, judged them guilty, and sentenced them to eternity in the lake of fire. Matthew 25:41; Revelation 20:10. Matthew 25:41 says that the lake of fire was prepared, past tense, for the devil and his angels. If it was prepared in eternity past for them for their judgment, why aren’t they there? Because God halted the process to resolve Satan’s appeal and inserted all of human history as a training aid to all of the angels to show them His justice, His righteousness, and to reveal to all creatures for all time and eternity that the only way to have success in anything is to have complete submission to the authority of God the Father.

6)      Although condemned, Satan apparently entered an appeal, challenged the justice and fairness of God, and so God granted the appeal and that is the basis and explanation for human history.

7)      There are two dangers in talking about demons. The first is excessive rationalism. In rationalism we tend to only believe the saying that make sense to us, that we can justify on the basis of our own reason, and this always limits the power of Satan, or it denies the reality of Satan. The other extreme or danger is mysticism. Mysticism always ends up in some sort of dualism which blames all the problems of life on Satan and the demons instead of recognizing the fact that you as a believer have volition and are making all your decisions from your own volition. Paganism always tries to go for victimization. Human viewpoint thinking says if evil is natural then my evil is not my fault; it is someone else’s fault, I’m the victim.

8)      Conclusion: We are engaged, therefore, as key players in this cosmic war. There is a war going on throughout all of the universe between the rebellious angels, called demons and Satan, and against God and the holy angels. And we are the test case, the experiment. We are carrying out the drama and Satan has a strategy for he and the demons to get their way.

All Believers

All believers                                       RD/Rev 054b

1)      All believers in the church age are going to get Raptured—total Rapture, not a partial Rapture.

2)      All believers in the church age are going to get resurrection bodies.

3)       All believers are going to have perfect happiness, though we have to recognize that the non-overcomer in the spiritual life is going to experience shame at the judgment seat of Christ—1 John 2:28.

4)      All believers have eternal life and spend eternity in heaven.

Annihilationism

Annihilationism:

The view that eternal punishment isn’t really eternal, that the unsaved will eventually be obliterated and no longer exist.

Universalism:

The view that eventually, all human beings will find their rest in God and spend eternity in heaven. For some this does not exclude some time in fiery torments, maybe even a very long time, but eventually all will be in heaven.

“What sort of God would He be who could rejoice eternally in heaven with the saved while downstairs the cries of the lost make an agonizing cacophony?” Green answers his own question: “Such a God is not the person revealed in Scripture as utterly just and utterly loving.” Green labels the traditional view of hell, “a doctrine of savagery.”

~Michael Green, Evangelism through the Local Church

“Christ, in Origen’s old words, remains on the Cross so long as one sinner remains in hell. That is not speculation; it is a statement grounded in the very necessity of God’s nature. In a universe of love there can be no heaven which tolerates a chamber of horrors, no hell for any which does not at the same time make it hell for God.”

~John A. T. Robinson

Antecedent Grace

Antecedint Grace   RD/1 John/055

Antecedent grace emphasises the fact that God’s grace has preceded all creation.

1.       Antecedent grace is based on the interaction between the three elements of divine integrity. The three elements are the righteousness, justice and love of God; they work together in terms of His integrity. Integrity emphasises the complete compatibility of the essence of God. What the righteousness of God demands the justice of God supplies, and He is motivated by His love to express His goodness to man in terms of grace.

2.       Antecedent grace is motivated by divine love. Love precedes grace. Grace is the outworking of the love of God towards undeserving creatures. In eternity past God took the initiative to solve man’s problem.

3.       Therefore, antecedent grace is based on divine omniscience.

4.       Because God’s love works together with His omniscience and all of the other attributes of His character His love instantly and eternally motivates a solution. He knew exactly what would have to be done in order to provide an answer for every problem and every difficulty that we would ever face. All of this took place in eternity past. 1 John 4:10 NASB “In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son {to be} the propitiation for our sins.” That emphasises the fact that He first loved us and our love for Him is merely a response to His love for us which began in eternity past.

5.       Definition: In the English language the word “antecedent” means the action of going before, existing before, or preceding. It precedes creation, sin, the fall; it is grace that took place in eternity past.

6.       There are two categories of antecedent grace: the divine initiative that took place in eternity past and the divine initiative that takes place in time. God always defines the problem and provides the solution. The divine initiative from eternity past is God’s grace provision for all aspects of grace: common grace, salvation grace, and for sanctification/spiritual life grace. Specifically for us we can say that the divine initiative in eternity past provided a perfect plan for the believer in the church age.

7.       To understand and appreciate grace we must first understand divine love. If grace is the manifestation/application of divine love, then to understand grace we must understand divine love. So we have to understand divine love to understand grace, we have to understand grace to be grace oriented, we have to be grace oriented in order to manifest grace to one another, and we have to manifest grace to one another in order to apply the basic commands of the Scripture and to live to love one another as Christ loved the church. The only way we can understand love in a human dimension is to spend time contemplating and meditating on the love that God has given to us based upon His grace. Once again that causes us to place our attention on the cross and the entire plan of salvation. Romans 5:8 NASB “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” God has given us the model for what love is.

Anthropomorphism

‎ 

‎Anthropomorphism:    RD/Kings/031b

‎a figure of speech or language of accommodation whereby human physical features (eyes, ears, nose, face, etc.) which God does not actually possess are ascribed to God to communicate within a finite, creaturely frame of reference God’s policies, plans, and person.

‎ 

‎The Hebrews had a name for this figure, and called it (Derech Benai Adam), the way of the sons of man.

‎ The Greeks had another name for it: SYNCATABASIS (Syn´-cat-ab´-a-sis), from (syn), together with,  (kata), down, and  (bainein), to go: a going down together with: i.e., God, by using this figure, condescends to the ignorance and infirmity of man.

Zoomorphism RD/Ruth 006

This is what is called a zoomorphism, it attributes to God something that applies to an animal that God doesn’t actually possess.

Anthropopathism

Anthropopathism:    RD/Kings/031b

a figure of speech or language of accommodation whereby human emotions (regret, remorse, sorrow, surprise, happiness, anger, jealousy, etc.) which God does not actually possess are ascribed to God to communicate within a finite, creaturely frame of reference God’s policies, plans, and person.

Anthropopatheia; or, Condescension The Ascribing of Human Attributes, etc., to God. An-throp´-o-path-ei´-a. Greek,  from (anthropos), man, and  (pathos), affections and feelings, etc. (from  paschein), to suffer). This figure is used of the ascription of human passions, actions, or attributes to God.

The Hebrews had a name for this figure, and called it (Derech Benai Adam), the way of the sons of man.

The Greeks had another name for it: SYNCATABASIS (Syn´-cat-ab´-a-sis), from  (syn), together with,  (kata), down, and  (bainein), to go: a going down together with: i.e., God, by using this figure, condescends to the ignorance and infirmity of man.

Anthropopathism. This figure of speech ascribes human emotions to God, as seen in Zechariah 8:1, “I am very jealous for Zion.”

Rejoicing, Isa 62:5 Sorrow and grief, Gen 6:6; Judges 10:16 Repentance, Gen. 6:6 Anger, Ex 15:7 Vengeance, Jer. 9:9 Hatred, Psa 5:5 Jealousy, Nahum 1:2 Displeasure, Zech 1:15 Pity, Joel 2:18

Antichrist Daniel 7

Summary  Daniel 7      Rev. 193b

1.       He rises to power from within the fourth empire, an empire made up of ten nations, a revival of the Roman empire.

2.       He comes up after this ten-nation confederacy has come together. When he arises the ten kings are already in place.

3.       There is some unique quality about him, as indicated in Daniel 7:28. He is able to bring people together and this is what concerns Daniel.

4.       He is arrogant and challenges the Most High with great or boastful words.

5.       He persecutes the Tribulation saints. He will pursue Israel (the woman) into the wilderness.

6.       He is given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. Revelation 13:7, 8. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast.  

7.       In Revelation 13:16-18 he forces everyone to receive his mark—showing his economic control.

8.       He gains control of the world for only three and a half years. The first three and a half years is his rise to power and then he tries to consolidate it during the second half of the Tribulation.     

9. He precpitates a war so ferocious thet "If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive" (Matt. 24:22)

10. He commits an "abonmination of desolation"

            =a unique act of blasphemy via desecratin the temple

11. He lives in a day when Israel exists as a nation, and the temple has ben rebuilt

12. He seeks to change the jewish ceremonial calendar.

13.During his reign, God ends history as we know it, and establishes the kingdom of God.

Antichrist Revelation 7

Antichrist Rev 13    Rev 201b

   1. In Daniel chapter seven we learned that the final kingdom is the second stage of the Roman empire, usually referred to as the revived Roman empire. Daniel 7:7-9, 19-25.

   2. The Antichrist is referred to in that chapter as the little horn. He is actually an eleventh horn that arises after a ten-nation alliance develops. Daniel 7:24.

   3. The Antichrist overthrows three kingdoms. He tears three horns out by the roots, Daniel 7:24, and he assumes control of the alliance.

   4. The Antichrist is depicted in terms of his character as arrogant. This is his major characteristic, he elevates himself above everything. Daniel 7:8.

   5. He is described as menacing and terrifying in 7:19, 20.

   6. He is militarily powerful and victorious, always defeats his enemies, 7:23, and he persecutes believers. 

Apocrypha (four basic problems with the)

There are four basic problems with the Apocrypha and why we do not accept it as part of the Word of God.

First, they were written predominantly in the Greek. The exceptions are Tobit, Judith, Ecclesiasticus, part of Baruch and I Maccabees, which were written in Hebrew or Aramaic. The rest are all written in Greek, so they are written much later than the rest of the Old Testament.

Secondly, they are written late after we know that the Old Testament canon was closed. We have statements made in ancient Jewish literature which indicate that the set number of books in the Old Testament was already established by the second century BC, before some of these books were even written.

Third, We also see that in these books there are numerous historical, geographical and chronological inaccuracies. For example, in , it states that the division of the kingdom under Jeroboam 1st in 931 BC after the death of Solomon occurred when Tobit was a young man. But Tobit was a young Israelite captive living in Nineveh under Shalmanezer in the late eight century or late 700s, 200 years later, so he would not have been alive at the time of the division of the kingdom. In , “In the twelfth year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar over the Assyrians at Nineveh, the great city; in the days of Arphaxad, which reigned over the Medes in Ecbatane.” But Nebuchadnezzar never did reign over the Assyrians at Nineveh, he was the second king of the neo-Babylonian empire and he reigned only at Babylon. So there are a number of errors like that which indicate that it is not from God.

Fourth, Then there are false doctrines. This is where are found the source for prayers and offerings for the dead, giving money as penance to make atonement for sin, the doctrine of the preexistence of souls, that the souls emanate from God; things like that. So they were not accepted by Jewish authorities.

Apologetics

What is Apologetics?    Heb. 051b

   1. Apologetics is the explanation and vindication of the Christian world view over and against the various forms of non-Christian world views.  We are going to explain defend and vindicate why Christianity is true and why any or all of the other views are false – Hinduism, Buddhism, Post Modernism, Modernism, Darwinism or whatever it is.  We are going to show why Christianity is true.  So it is making a truth claim.

   2. How you conduct your defense, your strategy for conducting that defense is as important as the content of the defense.  Let’s take a football analogy this time.   It’s not just good enough to have linemen and to have running backs that can run faster than the other team or a quarter back that can throw farther and more accurately than the other team.  You have to have a game plan and a strategy to take all of that talent so that you can defeat all of the talent on the other side.  That is what I am talking about.  You just don’t go willy-nilly (although most of us do) into evangelism opportunities.  Usually that is what happens.  We need think it through.  We have all done that.   We have blown this 1,000 times as we practice.  Each time you get involved with a discussion with an unbeliever you learn a little bit more.  So we are talking about the strategy for utilizing the evidence and how you talk with an unbeliever.  The unbeliever comes to the table with his set of criterion.  He is saying, “According to my human viewpoint pagan world view, this is how I determine truth.”  You are coming to the table with the Word of God.  Are you going to accept his presuppositions about ultimate validation of truth in order to win him to your side of the table?  You better not. The problem is that most of us do.  A lot of apologetics books ultimately utilize that kind of a strategy.  So we have to think about it.

   3. The key issue in a defense strategy is not to compromise the reality and the integrity of God and His revelation in the way we approach the subject.  We don’t want to compromise God’s integrity, the reality of His existence, and His revelation in the process of communicating the message.  Since God is the central and ultimate reality of the Christian faith and the highest authority in the universe, then we can’t appeal to some higher authority for proof that God is true.  If the Word of God is God’s Word, what higher authority can you go to in order to prove it than God Himself?  You can’t.  If you say reason or logic is our authority for proving the validity of God’s Word,  you have just said that there is something higher than God that I can go to in order to validate this.  Or you go to history.  What you are saying that there is something in history is that history is neutral and my interpretation of history is neutral.  The unbeliever’s interpretation of history is just as good as my interpretation of history.  Wait a minute.  Isn’t his interpretation clouded by the fact that he is suppressing the truth in unrighteousness? Romans 1:19 Sure it is.  So he is distorting the facts.   That is another issue.  What is a fact and how do you define what a fact is?  So if God is the ultimate reality of Christianity and the highest authority in the universe, then we can’t appeal to some higher authority for either proof of His existence or the veracity of His Word.  And if you start appealing to something else as that which ultimately proves God’s existence. Oh! I have a rational argument for the existence of God – wait a minute - you are saying that reason proves God. Does reason exist autonomously and independently from the omniscience of God?  No, it doesn’t.  It’s God’s thinking that defines reality.  So we have to be careful because it is easy to start answering the questions.  Charlie is the first one to teach me this.  You can’t answer a fool according to his folly.  That is what Proverbs says.   The way they ask the question and the way they phrase the questions predetermines where the conversation is going to go.  The next thing you know you are in trouble.  It is the old question of “have you quit beating your wife yet?”  However you answer the question you are in trouble.

   4. Since in the interchange and the conversation with the unbeliever, the issue is how do you know what is right and true in a field of competing religious claims and philosophical positions?  You have to be careful.  How do you determine truth?  What is your criterion for determining truth?  There is true and there is True.   How do you determine truth?   What is that umbrella up there that is the ultimate umbrella beyond which there is nothing?  Is it God?  It is logic?  Is it empiricism?  Or is it mysticism, how you feel?  How do you know it is true?  “Well, it resonated with me. I heard a pastor teach on this subject and I knew it was right.”  Did you look at the Scripture?  Did you exegete the passages?  Did you look at what he said? No?  Then you can’t rely on your heebie-geebie liver quiver to figure out that it is right.  You’ve got to look at the text.  I have seen so many people come along and they say, “Well, I have always heard this doctrine taught.  It fits my experience.”  You have become experiential now.  You are as bad as any human viewpoint pagan out there. Revelation isn’t your ultimate authority because you didn’t say, “Do the passages that this person cited support what he is saying?”  It’s not easy to do.  It is hard to do for me.  It’s harder for you.  I remember when I was going through Dallas Seminary.  You are in seminary and you are trying to figure all of this stuff out. You know generally what is right, but you are trying to figure out all of the details.  We had to take a course in pastoral psychology and counseling (Boy that was fun.) with Frank Meyer and Minrith.  They have really gone on to be famous.  You can go to a Minrith-Meyer clinic in Houston, Little Rock, Austin, or Dallas. They are all over the country.  Everybody falls in love with them because Minrith and Meyer are Christians and they taught at Dallas Seminary.  They must be right, right?  These guys biblical training was in a navigator discipleship course.   All they did human viewpoint psychology that they rewrapped in Christian terminology and patched a bunch of Bible verses on there.  But if you started going in there and exegiting every one of their proof texts in light of the context and original language, it wouldn’t document 80% of what they said.  A lot of Christians think that because a Bible verse there it must be right.  That must be what the text says.  These guys didn’t know Greek from Latin.  When we have truth claims the ultimate authority is the Word of God.  We can’t compromise by something else.

   5. God is all powerful.  He is an omnipotent God.  He is the God who spoke into reality the creation that we see and everything in it including the way we think and the way we categorize.  Everything about our mentality God created.   He created it the way He did so that He could communicate to us.  He created us in such a way that He could communicate to us.  Furthermore because God is the one who created everything the way it is, things are what they are because God made it that way.  A tree isn’t a tree because we have gone out and this is a product of chance or it just happens to grow that way or that trees function in a certain way because that is the way it is.  They function that way because God made them that way.  A tree is a tree because God said, “This is a tree.  This is how a tree is going to function.  This is how a tree is going to operate.   I am going to set the boundaries called kinds in Genesis 1 so that when you talk about a tree everybody knows you are talking about a tree and not a dog.”  So your very language presupposes those absolute kinds that the Scripture talks about.  God is omnipotent. He created the creation.  Things are what they are because He says so.  Morals are what they are.  Right and wrong is what it is because of God’s character and God’s revelation, not because of consensus and not because of culture.

   6. God is omnipotent because He is the absolute creator and possesses all authority.  His authority is self attesting.  When God speaks people know it is God.  It contains an inherent authority.  God made us in such a way so that brain receptor that we have knows Truth from God when it hears it. The trouble is after Genesis 3 carnality gets in the way and clouds up the way men think.  On top of that in negative volition they want to suppress the truth in unrighteousness.  I told you I could go to midnight.  Just hang in there.    7. The character of His revelation what He speaks therefore affirms the starting point that the recognition of God contains a self-attesting verification. We know it. We are made that way.  To suggest that there is another authority that we can go to in order to validate God puts man in the non-biblical position of being the truth determiner.  This is what Eve did.  The serpent came along as said, “If you eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, you are going to die?  Is that true?”  All of a sudden she had to judge God.  How is she going to do it?  By Experience?  Rationalism?  “Ah, I am going to do it by experience.  Let me eat it.”  What happened?  Everything dominoed from there.  She put herself first and foremost  in a position to judge God by an independent higher authority

   8. As Christians we begin with the assumption and we must begin with the assumption that God’s Word is the final authority and therefore it is God’s Word that stands in judgment of all other philosophical positions and religious claims.  Everything has to come under the authority of God’s Word.  The practical reality of all of this (I am helping you think through the thought methodology, the intellectual background of this.) is really beneficial.  We talked about this last time in terms of evangelism because it gives you greater confidence in starting with the Word of God and knowing that this is what God’s Word says and not having to figure out (sometimes it is nice to know) what everybody else believes - what the Muslims believe and what the Jews believe and all of this is helpful.  But we know that they already know that God exists.  That’s the key.

   9. Ultimately the problem of man is not rational.  When you appeal to some rational point, what are you saying?  You are saying that the reason that you are not buying the gospel is because you’ve got a cog lose in your logic machine.  If I can just point out to you how to straighten out your logic machine then you will trust Christ.  If you are appealing to history or empiricism what you are basically saying is, “You are missing the right piece of data from history or experience.  If I can plug that in so that you understand that Christ rose from the dead then you will believe in Christ.”  The only reason that you don’t believe in Christ is that you just don’t have the right piece of data or the right kind of logic.  But what the Bible says is the reason that you are not believing in Christ is because you are a sinner.  You are fallen.  The problem isn’t rational.  The problem isn’t experiential.  The problem is a spiritual problem.  You are suppressing the truth in unrighteousness.  You already know that God exists. Romans 1:18-9 You already know the truth.  It is not that you are missing data.  You don’t like the data.  What our job is to present the data without compromising it in the process.  It doesn’t mean that they’ll accept it.  We have to make sure we do a right thing in a right way.  That is why we have the Holy Spirit who cuts through all of this.

10. The Holy Spirit cuts through the spiritual darkness to shed light on the gospel.  John 16:7-8

Apologetics

Introduction to Apologetics RD/1Peter/083

1. What is Apologetics?

2. Why should we learn about apologetics?

3. Why do some people object to apologetics?

4. The Bible doesn’t use apologetics, why should we?

5. What is the difference between Apologetics and Christian Evidences?

6. On what basis do we defend, support, argue, that Christianity is the one and only TRUTH?

1. What is Apologetics?

OED (Oxford English Dictionary)

1 a regretful acknowledgement of an offence or failure.

3 a justification or defence.

In common usage, most people only think of the first meaning, which is not the biblical nor the historical meaning.

The OED’s third meaning is the meaning related to the biblical teaching on apologetics.

Apologetics has nothing to do with saying one is sorry or guilty over some action.

ἀπολογία apología

1 a speech of defense, defense, reply

2 the act of making a defense, defense; as

in court, or an eager activity to defend oneself, 3 claim of extenuating circumstance,excuse,

BAGD

“17× the noun or verb appears in the New Testament with the sense of either vindication or defense in every use.

, “And they drew Alexander out of the multitude, the Jews putting him forward. And Alexander motioned with his hand, and wanted to make his defense to the people.”

, “Then Paul, after the governor had nodded to him to speak, answered: ‘Inasmuch as I know that you have been for many years a judge of this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself,’ ”

, “Then Agrippa said to Paul, ‘You are permitted to speak for yourself.’ So Paul stretched out his hand and answered for himself:

Acts 26:2, “ ‘I think myself happy, King Agrippa, because today I shall answer for myself before you concerning all the things of which I am accused by the Jews,’ ”

, “Then Paul, after the governor had nodded to him to speak, answered: ‘Inasmuch as I know that you have been for many years a judge of this nation, I do the more cheerfully answer for myself,’ ”

“The New Testament, then, does not use the words apologia, and apologeomai (verb form) in the technical sense of the modern word apologetics. The idea of offering a reasoned defense of the faith is evident in three of these texts (, ; ).”

“Christian apologetics is the discipline wherein an intelligent effort is made to defend before an unbelieving world the truth claim of the Christian faith, specifically its claim of exclusive true knowledge of the living and true God, in a manner consistent with the teaching of Scripture.”

~Robert Reymond, The Justification of Knowledge

“Apologia describes a carefully reasoned defense in response to a line of questioning or wrongful accusation by recognized authorities. The word may also refer to a more informal defense outside of the courtroom against personal questioning or accusation (; ; ).

The intent of an apologia is to win over the person being addressed, to change his mind about what is true.”

~Clough, Theology and Apologetics

From this we see that the definition [of apologetics] involves the knowledge of facts and determination of truth. Over the centuries the meaning of knowledge, facts, and truth have been intensely debated. Underlying this discussion are assumptions about a specific view of reality. How one person understands reality is directly related to his worldview. This includes an understanding of the ultimate nature of reality, how we know anything and how we validate or justify that knowledge, how that knowledge affects our understanding of truth, which in turn impacts ethics and the determination of right and wrong, or even if right and wrong exists.

Genuine communication involves making clear what one person thinks to another person.

As such, the person who is communicating from a divine viewpoint should make sure that in his communication of his culture’s beliefs that he does not compromise his own divine viewpoint standards.

So in a more technical sense, “giving an answer” assumes giving an understandable explanation that communicates truly to the person who comes from a different framework.

How we know the gospel is true. is built on:

• knowledge,

• how we know,

• limitations on human knowledge because of both intellectual corruption from sin and volitional corruption,

• the nature and definition of truth,

• the role of God the Holy Spirit,

• the impact of unbelief and truth suppression on the part of the unbeliever.

2. Why should we learn about apologetics?

a. Because it is commanded in Scripture!

, “holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.”

, "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear;"

b. Because it strengthens our own understanding of what we believe and builds our confidence in God, the gospel, the Scripture, and Jesus.

c. It advances us spiritually.

, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds,

, “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

d. Apologetics was a priority for the apostle Paul.

, “just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.”

, “but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.”

e. Both thought and communication require it.

, “just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace.”

, “but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel.”

3. Why do some people object to apologetics?

a. Some people do not understand it, either from a misunderstanding of the concept or from a fallacious epistemology.

–The Bible does not need to be defended.

–God can’t be known by human reason.

–Natural humanity can’t understand.

–Jesus refused to give signs for evil men. But he did give signs.

b. Some people argue from a false perception of the biblical presupposition.

6. On what basis do we defend, support, argue, that Christianity is the one and only TRUTH?

This means that to some degree the fallen human has some realization of his situation, spiritual death, and the reality that he is under condemnation.

• The unbeliever knows within him ()

• The God of the Bible (not just “a god”) is the Creator of the world

• The world is controlled by God’s providence• The world is witness to a non saving grace of God

• Man is responsible for evil

• There is a need for God

• And man’s failure to honor God results in eternal

punishment

(Notaro: 34) Thom Notaro, Van Til and the Use of Evidence

Apologetics;Four Basic Issues

Four Basic Issues in Apologetics RD/1Pet/086

1. How do we know anything? Do we know things as they are or only as we perceive them? Is truth knowable absolutely or only probabilities, or only perceptions?

2. Do the theistic proofs actually prove anything?

3. What is the role of evidences in apologetics?

4. Is there a common ground between Christian thought (DVP) and non-Christian thought (HVP)? If so, what is it?

Apostolic Fathers

Apostolic Fathers

 The most important of these writings are the following:

—     The First Epistle of Clement, written in Rome about 95.

—     The Epistles of Ignatius; seven letters to various addresses, written about 115 during Ignatius’ journey to Rome and his anticipated martyr’s death.

—     The Epistle of Polycarp, written in Smyrna about 110.

—     The Epistle of Barnabas, probably written in Egypt sometime around 130.

—     The Second Epistle of Clement, written in Rome or Corinth about 140.

—     The Shepherd of Hermas, written in Rome about 150.

—     Fragments from Papias, written in Hierapolis of Phrygia about 150, cited in the works of Eusebius and Irenaeus (among others).

—     The Didache (“The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles”), written in the first half of the second century, probably in Syria.

[Page 16]

Bengt Hagglund, History of Theology, Translation of Teologins Historia., electronic ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1968), 15.

Approach to Life

Elements of a Religion, Philosophy, Worldview or Approach to Life     RD/Kings 067a

1. Everyone has a philosophy of life: some are conscious, rational, and internally consistent, most are not.

2. Every worldview/religion contains universals, indicated by “should,” “ought,” “right,” and “wrong.”

3. Entry point then to a worldview is often through values or ethics.

4. Ethical principles are based on prior assumptions about the nature of truth or knowledge and the ultimate nature of the universe.

Elements of a Religion, Philosophy, Worldview or Approach to Life

GOD          Man         CREATION                                       (nature)

There will always be a battle between the Bible and human viewpoint.

Aristocracy

Principle of Aristocracy

Here are some Honor Code principles found in Romans which for the purpose of emphasizing our present study we will refer to as “principles of aristocracy”:

Romans 12:3 -         I say through the grace that has been given to me, to everyone who is among you, stop thinking of yourself in terms of arrogance beyond what you ought to think, but rather think in terms of objectivity for the purpose of being rational as God has assigned to each one a standard of thinking from the source of doctrine.

                        Principle of aristocracy #1:  Stop being self-centered.  Arrogance always condemns others but never self.  Think objectively about yourself and others.

Romans 12:4 -         For just as we have many parts in one body [ the body of Christ; royal family ] and all the parts do not have the same function,

v. 5 -               so we the many are one body in Christ, and individually parts one of another.

Principle of Aristocracy #2:  Spiritual freedom allows all of us to function within our own spiritual gift.  Never encourage a person to function beyond his own norms and standards especially in the area of spiritual gifts.

Romans 12:9 -         Your love should be nonhypocritical.  Detest evil.  Cling to the good.

                        Principle of Aristocracy #3: Unconditional love toward all men does not require you to sacrifice principle or compromise truth.  Remember the formula: Doctrine produces integrity which when put under pressure requires probity in order for integrity to be manifest has honor.

                                    Pr

            D         è        IS        +         PèD     =         H

Doctrine (D) resident in the stream of consciousness produces (è) Integrity of Soul (IS).  When Integrity of Soul (IS) is placed under Pressure (Pr) and the believer expresses Probity toward Doctrine (PèD) then he is a person of Honor (H) which is how Integrity of Soul (IS) is manifest to the world.

(Note: See Integrity, Probity, and Honor, points 8-10, pp. 2375-77.)

Romans 12:10 -      With reference to your unconditional love be devoted to each other; with reference to honor, let each one of you esteem others more highly than yourself.

                        Principle of Aristocracy #4: Respect fellow believers as you would those of your own family members by recognizing imputed righteousness as the common bond and the privacy of the priesthood as a matter of honor.

Romans 12:11 -      With reference to your due diligence, do not be negligent; with reference to the Holy Spirit, be zealous when serving the Lord.

                        Principle of Aristocracy #5: Failure to remain consistent in one’s spiritual growth has a negative impact on application of the honor code.  Through the filling of the Holy Spirit, consistent service to the Lord is maintained.

Romans 12:12 -      With reference to confidence in the eternal future, have esprit de corps; with reference to undeserved suffering, stand fast.  Be persistent in prayer.

Principle of Aristocracy #6: Through confidence in your eternal future and with esprit de corps, stand fast in the face of undeserved suffering.  Prayer is the divinely provided instantaneous extradimensional communications network.

Romans 12:13 -      Contribute to the needs of the saints, practicing hospitality.

Principle of Aristocracy #7: Be willing to assist where possible a fellow believer in need.

Principle of Aristocracy #8: Be courteous to strangers and show them kindness.

Romans 14:14 -      Speak well of those who persecute you, keep on speaking well and do not curse them.

                        Principle of Aristocracy #9: Maintain poise and objectivity when fellow believers malign you.  Never make excuses.  Never retaliate.

(1)         This verse deals with persecution among believers.  The believer must remain gracious, relaxed, and detached from the criticism.

(2)         The offended party is not required to say anything but if he does it must be expressed from the source of doctrine.

(3)         Doctrinal thinking must precede doctrinal speaking, minus emotion.

(4)         If response, thought, and speech are motivated by reactor factors rather then wise analysis then the situation only worsens.

(5)         Good manners complement the response which must also be accompanied by poise and grace.

(6)         A disposition of poise and grace when persecuted always leaves the matter in the Lord’s hands so justice of God can deal with the matter directly.

(7)         Therefore, when being criticized, maligned, persecuted, or treated unfairly the believer must learn to leave it alone and let the Lord prosecute the case.

(8)         Any response to the assailant must not intrude upon this principle but rather emphasize an attitude of esprit-de-corps love.

Romans 12:15 -      Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep.

Principle of Aristocracy #10: Respond with happiness for those who are prospered or blessed by the Lord.  Respond with compassion for those who are suffering.

NOTE:           This requires the sympathizer to have more stability at the moment than the one who is saddened.  It only adds to the problem if the sympathizer says things that create or add to self-pity or stokes bitterness into anger.  It is doctrine that comforts but it must be related from a disposition that has genuine rapport with the one suffering.

Romans 12:16 -      Be thinking the same toward each other.  Do not be thinking in terms of arrogance but associate with people of humility.  Stop being wise in your own estimation.

Principle of Aristocracy #11: Respect the imputed righteousness of other believers.  Without arrogance be willing to associate with all believers who have esprit de corps.  Do not be opinionated through pseudo wisdom.

(1)         All believers are equal with regard to the forty things imputed at salvation, however, this equality only forms the basis for spiritual growth which results in all believers to becoming unequal.

(2)         Consider all other believers equal as fellow members of the royal family.  If you have more doctrine, do not lord it over them.

(3)         However, if you are a pastor you must insert doctrine into situations that require divine guidance or correction of error.  Your sheep remain your sheep whether you are in the pulpit or not.  Such instruction should be said respectfully but in all seriousness.

(4)         Fellow sheep should simply stay out of each other’s business unless it is a parent–to-child or a superior-to-subordinate situation.

Romans 12:17 -      Never pay back evil for evil.  Respect what is honorable in the sight of all mankind.

                        Principle of Aristocracy #12: Two wrongs do not make a right

Principle of Aristocracy # 13: Do not take the law into your own hands.

Romans 12:18 -      If it is possible as much as it depends on you, live in harmony with all mankind.

Principle of Aristocracy #14: Live and let live by using the problem-solving devices to live in harmony with every believer.

(1)         The “if clause” here is a first class condition and can be translated, “If it is possible and it is.”

(2)         You can live with others in harmony because you have the capacity to do so, or you have the potential to do so dependent upon your spiritual growth.

(3)         It is not possible to rebound for other believers.  It is not possible to be filled by the Spirit for other believers.  It is not possible to apply doctrine for other believers.

(4)         But you have these power options available to you and you are to maintain harmony with other believers because this harmony depends on you.

(5)         The honor code functions under the filling of the Holy Spirit and application of resident doctrine.  This gives the advancing believer the capacity to make harmonious rapport possible.

(6)         However, it is impossible to live in harmony with those who refuse to live under the honor code.

(7)         This is why the verse reads, “as much as it depends on you.”  You must function under the honor code even if others choose not to do so.

Romans 12:19 -      Fellow believer, do not take revenge but yield to the punishment from the justice of God, for it stands written, “Justice belongs to me, I will repay,” says the Lord.

Principle of Aristocracy #15: Never seek revenge, never retaliate, never prosecute a fellow believer.  Always defer to the justice of God when you are tempted to be vengeful or retaliate.

(1)         He who circumvents the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Heaven assumes his system of punishment is superior to God’s.

(2)         Retaliation indicates a belief that he is a more dependable expert at righting wrongs than God.

(3)         But Scripture clearly indicates that punishment belongs to God (See: Deuteronomy 32:35; Psalm 94:1; Hebrews 10:30).

(4)         God has no peer in the field of justice as it relates to His children, consequently, He needs no assistance from us in order to carry out perfect discipline.

(5)         This means that when a believer is treated unjustly by a fellow believer he must leave the prosecution of the incident in the hands of God who administers perfect justice.

(6)         To take a matter into one’s own hands takes it out of the hand’s of God and interferes with divine justice and violates the honor code.

(7)         Revenge and retaliation violates the honor code principle of aristocracy #15.  Justice should be left under the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of Heaven while dealing with the circumstance by means of biblical problem-solving devices.

(8)         A specific of this honor code principle is addressed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 where he admonishes members of the church for taking their disputes before heathen courts:

1 Corinthians 6:1 - Does any one of you, having a case against another believer, have the nerve to prosecute him before an unbeliever judge and not before the saints?

v. 2 -               Or do you not know [ oÙk Ðr£w, ouk horaō: they had already been taught this principle ] that the saints will judge the cosmic system?  If the cosmic system is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

v. 3 -               Do you not know [ oÙk Ðr£w, ouk horaō: they had already been taught this principle ] that we shall judge angels [ at the Great White Throne Judgment believers participate with Christ in judging fallen angels; see Scofield’s footnote at Jude 6 ]?  How much more are we qualified to judge things pertaining to this life?

v. 4 -               So if you have complaints regarding things pertaining to this life, why do you appoint judges who are the least qualified in the church?

NOTE:  The two parties in the dispute selected a mediator within the church but who has no doctrine and makes matters worse.  Members of the church were separated into three factions: some followed the teachings of Paul, some Apollos, and others Peter; all thought they were wise but none had the biblical wisdom to adjudicate the dispute.  As a result the decision was made to take the case to a heathen court.

1 Corinthians 6:5 - I say this to you for your shame.  Is it true there is not one wise man among you who is able to judge between two fellow believers [ In the absence of a pastor, members of the church had drifted into factions, those in each believing they were wise in knowledge but none had the wisdom to apply doctrine ]? 

v. 6 -               But instead one believer is prosecuting another believer and that before unbelievers [ causing clear and present damage to the Gospel message in Corinth ]!

 v. 7 -              What is a fact, then, is that you have already lost because you have been prosecuting one another [ in the world’s courts ].  Why not rather be wronged?  Why do you not rather be defrauded?

v. 8 -               No!  You do wrong and defraud your fellow believer.

The one who prosecutes a fellow believer in the world’s courts does a wrong thing in a wrong way.  What might be gained monetarily is reduced to insignificance by the damage it does to the image of Christianity in the eyes of the devil’s world while enhancing the pocketbooks of lawyers and impoverishing a child of God.  Not only this, the one who prosecutes defrauds the guilty person of receiving discipline from the justice of God by moving the venue away from the Supreme Court of Heaven over to the flawed wisdom of human law.  Two wrongs do not make a right, therefore to repeat:

Principle of Aristocracy #16: Never seek revenge, never retaliate, never prosecute a fellow believer.  Always defer to the justice of God when you are tempted to be vengeful or retaliate.

Romans 12:20 -      Nevertheless, if the one hostile to you is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him drink; for by doing this you pile up burning coals of fire on his head.

Principle of Aristocracy #17: When you respond to an adversary in grace you raise your enemy up to your standards.  When you strike back you have decided to lower yourself to the level of your adversary.

(1)         Forbearance, mercy, and indulgence toward your antagonist allow the Supreme Court of Heaven complete freedom to prosecute your case in the best interests of the perfect plan of God.

(2)         Forbearance is defined as “Tolerance and restraint in the face of provocation.  The act of a creditor who refrains from enforcing a debt when it falls due” [AHD/EL].

(3)         Mercy is defined as the “Kind and compassionate treatment of an offender.  Suggests reprieve from a fate of considerable severity [AHD/EL].

(4)         Indulgence is defined as “Lenient treatment.  Something granted as a favor” [AHD/EL].

(5)         From these definitions we can demonstrate Principle of Aristocracy #17 by means of a formula:

              Forbearance + Mercy = Indulgence, or:

              Tolerance + Compassion = Lenient treatment

            Romans 12:21 -      Stop being conquered by evil but conquer evil by means of the good.

Principle of Aristocracy #18: Stop being defeated by evil but rather be victorious through the application of Bible doctrine: vincit omnia veritas, doctrine conquers all.

Armageddon (8 Stages of)

8 Stages of Armageddon  RD/Rev/222-223-224-225

Armor of God

The Armor of God; James 4:7b; Eph. 6:10-18

RD/James/075

Ephesians 6:10 NASB “Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might. [11] Put on the full armor of God, so that you will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil.” The thing to remember about this whole description is that it is simply that, it an illustration. He uses the imagery of armour just to communicate the overall concept of God’s protection for the believer. The Old Testament used the same types of metaphors. It talks about God as our rock, that He is our bulwark, our fortress, our shield. All of these different images are designed to communicate the principle that it is in God and God alone that we have our protection. In fact, the suffering Servant who is a prophetic image in Isaiah of the Messiah puts on the same type of armour. Isaiah 59:17, describing the Messiah, NASB “He put on righteousness like a breastplate, And a helmet of salvation on His head; And He put on garments of vengeance for clothing And wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.” So throughout the Bible we have this martial imagery of warfare and the protection of God in the midst of spiritual warfare.

The key verb in Ephesians 6:10 is the command to be strong. It is ENDUNAMOO [e)ndunamow], present passive imperative. The present imperative indicates a standard operating procedure in the spiritual life, as opposed to aorist imperative which indicates something that is of crucial and vital importance for the moment. A present imperative indicates a general mandate for the Christian life, whereas an aorist imperative stresses its priorities and significance: do this right now. The passive voice indicates that the subject receives the action of the verb. So we are to be strong in the Lord. The subject is the believer. We receive our strength from outside of ourselves; it is not up to us.

In the spiritual realm we are absolutely ignorant. We cannot see demons, we cannot see angels. We cannot see what they do, what they look like, what they are capable of. If the Lord were to open the veil tonight we would be astounded at what is going on around us. It is the same thing that took place with Elisha in the Old Testament as the armies of the king were coming to surround him and his servant Gehazi was scared to death, and Elisha prayed, “Lord, open his eyes that he may see.” The Lord pulled back the veil and he saw that the hills were covered with angelic armies designed to protect Elisha from his enemies. So we have the protection of the Lord. He is the one in whose strength we must reside, and He is the one who has the capability, the power because He is omnipotent, the knowledge because He is omniscient, to know all that is going on and he has provided for us. We have to be strong in the Lord. This is not something that comes automatically but is the result of spiritual growth. This means that if you are a baby believer you do not automatically acquire this strength, it comes only through the process of learning the Word of God, studying doctrine and advancing through spiritual infancy, spiritual childhood, spiritual adolescence, spiritual adulthood through the utilization of the stress-busters. As a result of that the soul is edified, built up, and that gives us strength to handle whatever situation we may run into.

The idea of ENDUNAMOO is to cause someone to have the ability, to enable them, to strengthen them, to empower them, to make them able. The point is that God is the one who makes us able to handle the situations in spiritual conflicts. At the moment of salvation God has provided us with an innumerable number of grace assets. The only way we know about demons is from the Word of God. In the same way that is the only way that we find out what we have and what God has given us so that we can handle spiritual conflicts.

This scripture says that we are to put on the full armour of God, so that we will be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. The word “put on” is an aorist passive imperative. An aorist imperative stresses priority in the spiritual life. This is different from the standard operating procedure of the present imperative and emphasises the immediate significance of fulfilling this command. The believer is compared by analogy to the Roman soldier. When the Roman soldier would bivouac and set up his tent he was very disciplined, everything was in a row, and outside the tent they would stack their equipment. So when the enemy came and the command was given they would come out of their tent, everything would be in its proper place, and they would grab their armour be dressed in a few moments and ready for combat. The “full” armour of God emphasizes advances to spiritual maturity. The active voice emphasizes the fact that this is our responsibility to learn what the armour is and to learn how to put in on so that we can be defended in the day of battle.

Putting on the full armour of God allows us to stand form against the schemes of the devil. The term “armour of God” is PANOPLIAN TOU THEOU [panolian tou qeou] which means the full armour, not just partial armour. Then there is a purpose clause here: to “be able to stand firm,” which is STENAI [sthnai], aorist infinitive, and the dictionary form of this verb is HISTEMI [i(sthmi]. There are two words which are very similar, HISTEMI and ANTHISTEMI [a)nqisthmi]. They both have the root HISTEMI and the second word has the preposition ANTI which strengthens it. Both have the same concept of standing still, standing form, holding your ground. They were used in a military context to indicate defence. Everybody knows you can’t win in the military with just defence, but in terms of the angelic conflict and spiritual warfare we are commanded to go on the defence because we do not have what it takes to operate in the angelic realm. Only God has that ability, so we have to do what Moses did in the Old Testament: “Stand still and see the deliverance of the Lord.” When the Jewish scribes translated the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek they used the word HISTEMI for “stand still.” Paul uses one or other of these two words about five times in this passage in Ephesians 6 to emphasize the principle that the believer is not to be engaged in offensive action against Satan and the demons because we do not know what is going on.

Satan has various strategies, this passage says. The Greek word for “schemes” is METHODEIA [meqodeia] which means cunning stratagem. Satan has all sorts of schemes to distract believers from the truth, to distort the truth, and to destroy the witness of Christians and to blind unbelievers to the truth of the gospel. His greatest strategy always seems to involve the various philosophies and religions in the world. The Bible warns us that every way apart from God’s way of thinking is demonic. The Scripture says that anything that does not align one hundred per cent with the thinking of God’s Word is demonic. It is aligned with the same kind of thinking as Satan as the demons because at its core is based the idea that man independent from God has the ability to understand and define reality without submitting to the authority of God and His revelation. All of this goes under the title of the cosmic system [kosmoj], and under the cosmic system we find a number of demonic deceptions: moral relativism, situational ethics, the postmodern thought of today as well as the modern thought of a generation ago and Enlightenment thinking a century ago. We find the new age movement with all its emphasis on angels and spiritism and necromancy, and this is all a part of Satan’s demonic system.

Satan has thousands of different things but they all have certain things in common. All of the various social experimentation programs from feminism to gay rights are all part of Satan’s agenda, as it the proliferation of pagan religions and apostate Christian cults. All of this is defined in the Scriptures as the doctrines of demons (1 Timothy 4:1). In one of the parables Jesus said that Satan’s role is to take the Word from the mind so that they will not believe and be saved. All of these schemes include political ideas that promote global economies and international bodies of law and international law courts. All of this is Satan’s attempt to unite the human race against God. His schemes includes various criminal justice concepts that give more rights to the criminal than to the victim, as well as temptations to arrogance, self-reliance, self-absorption, and substitution human-based thinking in the guise of psychology, sociology, and science which cause people to think that they can achieve a certain level of success and happiness in life apart from God. All of this we are warned against in the Scripture. 1 John 2:15 NASB “Do not love the world [cosmic thinking] the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. [16] For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.” The greatest danger from Satan is not demon possession or demon oppression, the greatest danger from Satan is all of these various thought systems that seem to supply an element of success and happiness and seem to be beneficial to the human race.

The battlefield is ultimately spiritual and takes place between your ears; it is not outside of yourself. Ephesians 6:12 NASB “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual {forces} of wickedness in the heavenly {places.}” The word translated “struggle,” PALE [palh] refers to hand to hand combat. It was used frequently to describe a wrestling match. In the ancient world they often had wrestling matches unto death, and that is the idea that underlies this word. It is a death struggle; it is for our very spiritual lives. Our struggle is not against mortal flesh (flesh and blood), i.e. that which is in the physical world. The real spiritual battle is against spiritual forces: against Satan, against all of the demons that are arrayed on his side  in the demonic armies, and it is they that are putting these ideas into the human race, and it is that against which we are struggling. So our greatest enemy is not necessarily people, our greatest enemy is the invisible army that is working behind the scenes.

These are classified by rank here: “rulers, powers, world forces of this darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness.” Paul really doesn’t go on to explain what these mean and what their significance is, but we find similar classifications on Colossians 2:15 and 1 Peter 3:22. What we do learn from this is that the demon forces are organized and that there is a chain of command among the demon armies, and they are working toward a unified purpose. This entire army is arrayed against the body of Christ and against the believer. Yet, we do not need to be afraid because we have the power of God and all of the spiritual assets, and God is the one who fights the battle for us. “The battle is the Lord’s.”   

Ephesians 6:13 NASB “Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.” This is the solution: “take up the full armor of God.” Once again we see the word ANALAMBANO [a)nalambanw], present active indicative, indicating that this is to be the standard procedure in the spiritual life. We pick up the “full armour for the purpose [HINA /i(na plus the subjunctive], that you might be able to resist,” and the Greek word there is ANTHISTEMI, the word that is used in James 4:7. How then are we to resist the devil so that he will flee from us? By putting on the armour of God. It is the armour of God that allows us to resist the devil, to fulfil the mandate in James 4:7 so that we can stand our ground and not be defeated in the angelic conflict. The “evil day” is that particular time when we come into certain adversities or conflict when the angelic conflict is raging around us.

The armament of the soldier involves several different aspects, not all of which are included by Paul in this analogy; he just focuses on six. Romans wore a helmet that was made of leather and covered with strips of metal, a breastplate that was primarily leather and also covered with strips of metal (sometimes it was made out of brass for the officers), and a thick leather belt which wrapped around his waist. From that belt there were wide leather strips that hung down, designed to protect the legs and middle area. It was also to this belt that was affixed his sword and his breastplate was tiled to that belt for stability. It was the belt that held everything together. He wore combat sandals, he also had a shield, and a sword.

What we see here in this analogy that Paul uses is that we are to stand firm. Ephesians 6:14 NASB “Stand firm therefore, HAVING GIRDED YOUR LOINS WITH TRUTH, and HAVING PUT ON THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS.” So the image here is of the soldier who pulls up his tunic and gets it out of the way. This means that you clear the decks for battle, you get rid of the distractions in your life. You figure out what it is in your life that distracts you from making doctrine the number one priority in your life. We focus on the truth. The truth here is all of the principles and precepts that are encapsulated in the Scriptures, and that is what we call Bible doctrine. Notice that the first command here is to stand firm, and it is the present active indicative of HISTEMI. Notice how many times Paul repeats this word. What do you think the point is? Stand your ground. He doesn’t say advance or attack. The belt, called the baldric, is called by Paul the truth because it is the truth of Bible doctrine, the principles and precepts of divine revelation, that hold everything together in our lives. It is the truth of God’s Word that gives us stability in times of adversity and conflict in our lives; it is the truth of God’s Word that sets the believer free from the rule of the sin nature and the domination of human viewpoint thinking, which is also called demonic thinking. Remember, it was rejection of the truth that led to Adam’s disobedience; it was reliance upon the truth that was the bulwark of Jesus’ defence against the devil’s temptations in Matthew chapter four. Truth was the fortress of David’s mental attitude. Proverbs 20:28 NASB “Loyalty and truth preserve the king, And he upholds his throne by righteousness.” Truth denied was what led to the death of Ananias and Sapphira as they followed the thoughts and temptations of the father of lies in Acts 5:3; John 8:44. Truth is a defensive weapon; it is not an offensive weapon. The whole concept of armour is designed to defend the individual and to protect him.   

Putting on the breastplate of righteousness involves two aspects: imputed righteousness from our salvation, and that is the foundation of our protection. But then if you are a believer and get involved in disobedience to God and extended carnality, then you have already been defeated in spiritual warfare. So the breastplate of righteousness here is not simply imputed righteousness but imputed righteousness that is than parlayed into practical or experiential righteousness as you grow and advance in the spiritual life, applying doctrine in your life, living a life under the filling of God the Holy Spirit so that divine good, the production of the Holy Spirit, is produced in your life. That is what protects the believer is spiritual warfare.  

Ephesians 6:15 NASB “and having shod YOUR FEET WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE.” The Roman soldier wore this caligae, hobnail, half-inch thick leather sole that protected his feet. Nothing is more important for an infantry soldier than his feet. If he has problems with his feet his mobility is limited. So what we are talking about here is that which provides foundation and mobility to the soldier. It is the gospel of peace. In Romans 5:1 we are told that the essence of reconciliation, the totality of what Christ did no the cross was peace, peace between man and God, but it was on the basis of that peace that we have with God that is parlayed into a practical peace. Philippians 4:6, 7 NASB “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” So this is not simply the gospel in terms of having been saved but is the practical benefits of that from the prince of peace who gives us that peace of mind, that inner emotional stability during times of crisis.

Ephesians 6:16 NASB “in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil {one.}” The shield of faith is the faith-rest drill. This takes place when you believe that the Word of God is more real to you than your circumstances, your emotions, your feelings or your intuitions. 2 Corinthians 5:7 NASB “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” It is faith that overcomes the cosmic system in 1 John 5:4, 5, and we resist the devil by means of faith, 1 Peter 5:8. So it is trusting God and His Word, not trusting our experience. This is a radical reliance upon the reality of God’s Word. It wards off the variety of assaults the devil makes. It is doctrine and the application of the faith-rest drill which is able to extinguish all of the flaming missiles of the evil one. This is sufficiency of the cross and the sufficiency of grace.   

Ephesians 6:17 NASB “And take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” The armour is completed. The helmet of salvation surrounds the head. It is that which protects the head, the seat of the soul, from injury in spiritual warfare. That is an indication again that a believer cannot be demon possessed. The word here translated “word of God” is not LOGOS [logoj] which has to do with the principles of God’s Word, but it is the  RHEMA [r(hma] which has to do with the applied Word. When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan, every time He answered He quoted a passage of Scripture. In other words, it is thrust and parry, thrust and parry. Satan would attack with the thrust and the Lord used the Word, the sword of the Spirit, to parry the thrust. He did not engage in offence. He parried the thrust, he did not drive the point home.

All of this is strengthened and is involved in an attitude of prayer. Ephesians 6:18 NASB “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit [EN PNEUMATI/ e)n pneumati = by means of the spirit], and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.”

The Scripture tells us that God has provided for us in His grace perfect solutions to all of our problems, even those that we are unaware of in the spiritual realm. God has given us more than enough spiritual; assets to solve every single problem in our lives. All we have to do is learn what these assets are so that we can pick up the fill armour of God and utilize that and reside in it.

Arogance

Arrogance  RD/3 John 022

1.       Arrogance is defined as the creature elevating his ideas, opinions, values and actions over that of the creator. He is going to judge God and God’s Word from his own frame of reference.

2.       Arrogance is the basic orientation of the sin nature.

3.       Therefore arrogance is the enemy of the spiritual life and is the complete and total opposite of grace.

4.       Arrogance is synonymous with vanity. It puts all of the emphasis on one’s person, talents, attainments or possessions. It is linked with a lust for approbation or praise from others.

5.       Arrogance brings with it a host of other sins—mental attitude sins such as jealousy, bitterness, vindictiveness, implacability, revenge motivation, as well as sins of the tongue such as slander, gossip, judging, and maligning.

6.       Arrogance is a mental attitude sin which overflows into motivation, decision making and priorities. As soon as one becomes arrogant he changes his priorities.  

Arrogance Skills

Arrogance Skills    RD/Kings/074b

Self-absorption

Self-indulgence

Self-deception

Self-justification

Self-deification

Arrogance Skills

Sin nature control means arrogance and the operation of the Arrogance Skills.

Now I’ve summarized these basically:

·        Self-absorption, which leads to self-indulgence.

We want to just focus on “me.” It is not about “you.” It is about “me.” And when you get two sinners living together, each one is screaming at the other one. It’s all about “me.” It’s not about “you,” and that leads to a lot of problems. When we are focused on self that leads to self-indulgence. We want to spoil ourselves, and we like to feed the comfort areas of our sin nature with our comfort sins.

·        That’s self-indulgence. That leads to self-justification.

Because it works for us. It may not be biblical, but it works for me, and it helps me solve my problems. But it is not getting you anywhere. In fact, eventually it’s going to cause great problems in your life.

·        We have self-justification, which leads to self-deception as we develop all kinds of rationalizations for our sinful behavior.

·        And because we are the ultimate determiner of what’s right for our life – that’s self-deification. We make an idol of our own passions and our own desires.

Arrogant People

There are six things that arrogant people want.

"RD/James/038

a) They want wealth without honor;

b) success without integrity;

c) promotion without ability;

d) recognition without humility;

e) love without virtue;

f) sex without morality.

This is why grace orientation comes first. You have to learn humility, authority orientation to God, and teachability before you ever are going to get to a point where you can appreciate God for who He is and what he has done for you, and begin to love Him. Without humility we cannot learn, advance or have any kind of close intimacy with God.

Artemis of the Exphesian

Artemis of the Ephesians

Acts 19.  Artemis of Ephesus was a tremendously popular deity; in fact, the Greek traveler Pausanias \paw s‚_ nÁ as\ stated that she was the god(dess) most worshipped in private devotions in the Mediterranean world.  Her cult idol was unusual-a stiff, elongated body with legs bound together in mummy-like fashion. The upper half of the front torso was covered with protuberances resembling human breasts, so that she was sometimes called the “many-breasted Artemis.”  She wore a necklace of acorns, for the oak tree was sacred to her, and on her breastplate appeared the signs of the zodiac. 

On her head rose a high crown, often topped with the turrets of the city of Ephesus.  This crown may have concealed a meteorite “which fell from heaven” (Acts 19:35).  Frequently her skirt was decorated with rows of animals, an indicator of fertility, and along the sides were bees, depicted as both actual insects and as priestesses, adorned with crowns and wings.  Artemis herself was known as the queen bee, and her castrated priests were called “drones.” The first idol to Artemis was said to have been carved of wood and set in an oak tree at Ephesus by the Amazons.  The sanctuary was soon surrounded by a village as it became the site of pilgrimage.  On the site one temple succeeded another in size and splendor, until the final shrine was considered one of the wonders of the ancient world.  Thousands of personnel served within the immense confines of the sanctuary, and huge sums of money were entrusted to the keeping of Artemis.  As a result the temple complex became the major banking center of Asia.  Not only was Artemis the guardian deity of Ephesus, but she also figured as savior goddess in inscriptions.  The dead were entrusted to her care, and she was thought to have lent her assistance to women in childbirth. Secret rituals known as “mysteries,” portraying both birth and death, initiated her devotees.

The book of Acts (19:23-41) records the first of many confrontations between the followers of Christ and those of Artemis.

Ascension of Jesus Christ

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 Ascension of Jesus Christ 

   1. Christ’s ascension is the basis for present encouragement and strength in difficult times.  His ascension becomes the foundation for the writer’s challenge to people to hang in there when things are difficult.  The ascension is not just a doctrine that talks about the fact that Jesus has gone to heaven and He is sitting there at the right hand until the Father says it is okay to come back.  There is a practical reality that He is at the right hand ready to come to our aid and strengthen us in difficult times.

   2. Christ’s ascension is the culmination of His victory over sin and death on the cross.  He died on the cross and He paid the penalty for our sins.  Then He was buried.  He rose again on the third day.  It is the ascension that is the Father’s final approval and acceptance.  When He goes home to be with the Father is when He ascends to heaven.  Ephesians 4:8f  went back to Psalm 68:18 and picked up on that ascension imagery when the ark was taken up to the top of the temple mount as a picture of God’s victory over all of Israel’s enemies.  That imagery is used to communicate what happens at the ascension of Christ. He has had victory over all of the enemies.  If the enemy has been defeated, then that certainly encourages us that even though it may not feel like those enemies are defeated, the battle is over and the battle is won.   This is just the mopping up operation to give us an opportunity to grow and mature and to prepare us for our future ministry and service with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennial Kingdom.

   3. This means the evil, the suffering, the horrors, the adversity that we face on a day to day basis in a fallen world is only temporary.  All this that we go through is just temporary.  The battle has been won.   We have a glorious future to anticipate.  All of this flows out of an understanding of the present session of the high priesthood Christ.

   4. This means that He is going to come back.  He is going to return.  

NKJ John 14:3 "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

The ascension reminds us that there is a future home and destiny for us with the Lord Jesus Christ.  In Acts 1:11 the angel said that he would return in the same manner in which He left.

   5. As a human high priest He can sympathize.  There is empathy.  There is a desire to help us in the midst of our difficulty because He has gone through the same thing that we have gone through.  There is this factor that at the right hand of God the Father there is a human being who went through the same kinds of tests that you are going through.   It is not some other kind of creature.   Therefore He completely understands what you and I go through as we face these struggles. 

   6. His high priesthood, His ascension to the throne, gives us direct access to God.  This has never happened before in human history.  We are so used to that in the Church Age that we forget how radical this is.  You as an individual believer have direct immediate access to God the Father on the throne as He is governing the universe!  We have a special ear - a mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We don’t pray to the Lord Jesus Christ.  We don’t have to go through any saints.  We don’t have to pray to Mary.  We have the Lord Jesus Christ who is there as the one who strengthens us and helps us and is there as our intercessor so we can face the struggles of life.  That’s the challenge.

Atonement

Atonement   RD/Heb/141b

The first thing that we have to understand is - what in the world does this word atonement mean?  What does it mean?  I’ve touched on this in the past to some degree.  Each time I go back I have to shake my head.  I read more articles and get other contradictory or different information.  I’ve come to some slightly newer, maybe less fuzzy conclusions.

Most of us were taught that the basic meaning of kaphar (kpr – those are the three consonants in the Hebrew) had to do with covering in a literal sense.  So that worked well.  We have the Ark of the Covenant and inside you have the Law and the manna and Aaron’s rod that budded.  So blood is put on the mercy seat.  Actually when we look at it there is only one dab of blood on top of the mercy seat.  The other 7 go on the floor in front of it.  So I think it is sort of misrepresented - the idea that this blood is smeared over the top of the mercy seat and literally covering what’s underneath there.  That’s not quite the idea although it’s mixed in there.  That’s where it gets kind of fun.

The English word though that translates kaphar is a word that is made up in English from the compound phrase at-one-ment - atonement - at-one-ment.  That’s where we get the word atonement.   They scrunched those three words together and we have a new English word atonement.  But what does atonement mean?  Now I challenge you if you want to have some fun and frustration, go to your English dictionary.  Check the Oxford English Dictionary; check Webster’s.  I think it’s 12th or 13th edition now.  Check Collins and any other of the English dictionaries and you get this daisy chain run around that atonement means to reconcile or to expiate.  Okay, well what does expiate mean?  It means to atone.  Alright, the concept of at-one-ment really pictures reconciliation - that people are coming together and becoming one.  So you look up reconciliation and that means to atone.  So see what happens is we define one word with another word; then when we go to that word it directs us back to the first word.  We’re not getting any real definitions.  We’re only running around the dictionary and deepening our confusion and increasing the density of the fog.

So what does this word really mean?  Now if we investigate some things like the Hebrew lexicons that we have, there is just as much of a fog.  There is the recognition that there’s one form of kpr that’s used in Genesis 6 in reference to putting pitch - covering the ark Noah with pitch.  So that idea is there and that is a qal stem.  Then we have the words that are used in Exodus many times.    Mostly the word atonement which is used a little over 100 times in the Old Testament is used in ritual context or priestly context and it has various ideas.  In the Septuagint it’s translated in many cases by the word katharizo which means to cleanse or to purify.  Cleansing has the idea of wiping something away.

Now just to give us a little more confusion, one popular version based on the English text is done my Spiro Zodhiates who is a native Greek speaker.  He defines kaphar this way.

It is a verb meaning to cover, to forgive, (Notice that.  Pay attention to this. It’s interesting.) to expiate, and to reconcile.

Now we’ve all seen the fact that in the New Testament reconciliation, expiation, forgiveness are all distinct concepts.  All of them are distinct doctrines and distinct facets to the work of Christ on the cross.  So he says this word kaphar means all of them.  Hum…that’s interesting.   He goes on to write:

This word write that this word is of supreme theological importance in the Old Testament as it is central to an Old Testament understanding of the remission of sin.

What is the remission of sin?  What does remission mean?  It means canceling sin - canceling sin.  When you cancel a debt, what’s that called?  Forgiveness  Well, we’re getting into some interesting territory here.  Forgiveness is also referred to as cleansing.  I John 1:9.  Okay, well that fits.  That goes together.

It goes on to say:

At its most basic level the word conveys covering but not in the sense of merely concealing.

Now there’s an important nuance because when we talk about atonement covering sin we have that visual of blood covering the sin.  It almost conveys that idea of a cover-up.   I don’t mean that in a negative sense; but that’s sort of the idea of a cover-up.  Yet when we talk about the mercy seat…and the word for mercy seat in the Greek comes from the Hebrew word kapporeth, but the word that’s used in the Greek is hilasterion which is the word that is translated propitiation.  Oh, now we have another idea here.  We’ve got reconciliation, forgiveness, expiation and some dictionaries will even talk about redemption.  So we’ve got redemption, expiation, reconciliation, forgiveness - all of these different ideas all pop up in different definitions of atonement.

So Zodhiates goes on to say:

It is therefore employed to signify the cancellation or writing over of a contract.

What an interesting concept!  That’s the idea of what we see in Colossians 2.  We’re not going to get there tonight, but I want to go there because it’s really interesting how it ties together.  Colossians 2:12-14 talks about the fact that on the cross God nailed to the cross the debt of certificate against us, canceling it.  The death of Christ cancelled that. That is referred to in the context of Colossians 2:12-14 as forgiveness – positional forgiveness.  That’s what happens at the cross.  There is a positional forgiveness that occurs and a genuine canceling of the debt of sin.  Christ paid the penalty in full at the cross for everybody.  It’s just very, very clear there.  We’re going to have to go in there and investigate that just a little bit to understand this.

So Zodhiates says:

…to signify the cancellation or writing over of a contract in Isaiah 28:18 the appeasing of anger.

Now I don’t like the word appeasing that much.  Maybe it has a legal idea.  But that’s really how propitiation is described – appeasing or satisfying the judicial demands of God.  So when we look at this idea of covering, it has an idea of canceling as it looks man-ward; but as it looks god-ward, what is it doing?  It is canceling or it is covering up His demands.  It is resolving His righteous and holy demands. That’s the idea of satisfaction – that His justice is satisfied.

Now the root idea of the word as it appears in the qal stem which doesn’t have to do with the ritual… Hebrew has different stems and each of these does something to the word so the qal is the basic root stem.  Then you have the piel which intensifies the meaning so it picks up a different level of meaning.  The hiphil is causative.  The hithpael is reflexive.  These ideas come up.  The root idea in the qal means to cover, to paint or to smear something.  But in the piel stem (which is the stem we’re dealing with); it means to atone, appease, to make amends and the participial form kopher means to ransom. There’s your redemption idea.

The cognate in Acadian means to wipe something off or to cleanse it.  However in the Arabic, the Arabic cognate means to cover or conceal something.  That’s where the debate is today among scholars.  Does the Hebrew word have more in common with the Acadian idea of wiping away and ritual cleansing or does it have more to do with the Arabic word that has the idea of a covering?  A lot of scholars are moving more to the Acadian.  The Arabic is attested mostly in post-Islamic writings which are fairly modern and we’re dealing with a word that goes back at least 2,000 years prior to the Islamic period.  So there’s sort of the state of the debate as we have it today.

Now in summary what I think coming to now is that God chose this word because it is a multifaceted word.  It incorporates all these different dimensions and facets of how God solves the sin problem.  So we can’t just capture it in one word.  That makes it a great word for describing in a complete sense what Christ does on the cross.  In terms of the mercy seat function, we’re talking about propitiation and Christ solving the problem of God’s character.  In the idea of the blood being applied, the blood relates to the price that’s paid.  The substitutionary atonement - this brings in the redemption idea.  The covering idea brings in the idea of cleansing and forgiveness which is then emphasized on the Day of Atonement.

Remember, on the Day of Atonement you have about three major things that happen.

   1. The first major thing is a sin offering first and a burnt offering.  Why is it in that order?  It’s in that order because Aaron has to solve his sin problem (confession of sin) and then recognize his commitment to God with a burnt offering before he can even go into the Holy of Holies.  That’s the same thing we practice all the time – you have to confess your sins before you can worship or live your spiritual life or move forward or anything of that nature.    2. The second thing that happens is the whole ritual involved with the mercy seat and putting the blood on the mercy seat and the horns of the altar.    3. Then the third thing that happens is the thing with the scapegoat.  Now nothing on the Day of Atonement is related to experiential living – experiential spiritual life.  It has to do with the annual payment of the debt of sin by the nation. It’s not that the blood of bulls and goats can’t do anything.  It can only do it for a year.  And, it has to be renewed every year.  So what happens at the end is he comes out and he has two goats.  On one he puts his hands, recites the sins of the nation and then kills the goat.  The other goat is then taken out into the wilderness.  It’s not taken down the street or across the valley or over the next hill.  It is taken by a trusted assistant the text says.  Why?  Because, if you get some lazy person with no work ethic, as soon as they get around the corner and nobody can see them anymore they’re going to let that goat go.  And, what’s that goat going to do?  He’s going to come right back.  But the whole point of this is to show that sins are completely totally removed and will never be brought up again.  So that goat is taken out into the wilderness where it is let go and never finds its way back because the sins are completely and totally paid for by Christ and they’re not the issue.  That’s not talking about experiential forgiveness although that’s true there.

It is talking about the reality of the fact that Christ cancelled the debt on the cross.  Period!  For everybody! For every believer, unbeliever…  The debt was paid for.  The penalty was paid for – period.  But that doesn’t get people saved.  It just means that the debt of sin is paid for.  But they are still spiritually dead.  They are still lacking righteousness.  They’re still in a state of condemnation until they trust in Christ as their Savior.  So we have all of these different aspects and facets of the work of Christ on the cross - all of them exhibited in this one word that is just loaded.  This is what is depicted on Day of Atonement every single year.  It pictures that once, for all complete payment of sin by Christ on the cross which is exactly the point that the writer of Hebrews is going to make in the rest of Hebrews 9.

So just to review, I pointed out that:  RD/Heb/142b

   1. The English word for atonement that we have in our Bibles and Old Testament (doesn’t occur in the New Testament) was coined in the English from the phrase at-one-ment which is a word that emphasizes reconciliation – bringing two disagreeing parties together as one.  So that emphasized reconciliation.    2. If you look the word “atonement” up though in any English dictionary, what you will also discover is that it is often defined with the word “redemption” because there is a blood sacrifice that’s made.  There is the bull that is sacrificed, a goat that is sacrificed.  Their blood is brought in as a sin offering and put on the mercy seat and then sprinkled in front of the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies.  It is that blood sacrifice and it’s the blood that pictures the payment price for sin.  That is redemption.  The word redemption means to pay a price.  That’s the core meaning in the word redemption.  But payment of a price is a very different idea than bringing people who are at odds with one another together in reconciliation.   So they’re not synonyms; but they speak of different facets of the work of Christ on the cross.    3. Then there’s the whole imagery of the mercy seat itself the kaphoreth as it was called in the Hebrew which is hilasterion in the Greek – called the mercy seat.  This depicts the satisfaction of God’s righteousness and justice.  Before God can be truly reconciled to man, His righteous standard has to be satisfied and His justice has to be appeased.  If you look up the word kaphar in many dictionaries or even atonement in English; it will also use this word to appease justice or to appease someone’s wrath.  So that brings in this idea of propitiation that is also vital to understanding all of Christ’s work on the cross.    4. Then another word that is used relates to the fourth point - that because God is propitiated and the penalty is paid, the debt of sin is then cancelled.  It’s that idea of canceling or wiping out the debt – just completely removing, eradicating, blotting out the debt as if it never existed that we have the idea of forgiveness.    5. And also another word that’s used in theology is expiation.  Now forgiveness is a very important term.  That should be Colossians 2:12-14 down there on point 4 not Colossians 1:12-14.

Attributes of God

Attributes of God  Gen 002

There are several different attributes of God that are emphasized in the book of Genesis.

1)      The first is that God is a living God who is deeply involved in His creation. So that the laws of nature are really the laws of God, the laws that He set in motion and that He continues to watch over, and the laws that He continues to sustain. God is eternally existing and He is distinct from all creation: Genesis 1:1, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” This statement stands in marked contrast to every other statement in the ancient world or even modern times about creation.

2)      We see God in Genesis as one who interacts with man. He comes and walks in the garden in the cool of the day and teaches Adam and the woman before the fall. He is the one who seeks out and takes the initiative to spend time with him, to find out what the problem was after they disobeyed Him. He is the one who takes the initiative to provide a solution to the problem that man has created. It is God who speaks, it is God who sees, it is God who hears the problems of man, it is God who rests at the end of the creation week. God is intimately involved with His creation. He interacts with mankind throughout creation. We see this in Genesis chapters 1, 2,3, 17, 18, and other chapters.

3)      He is the one who created mankind as a reflector of Himself. Man is created in the image and likeness of God. We are to reflect God’s character, His attributes, we represent God. We were originally created to represent God and to rule over creation—Genesis chapter one.

4)      God is the one who enters into the human arena with a human form and human acts—Genesis 12, 18, 32. This shows the divine initiative of grace.

5)      He reveals Himself. God is not hiding from man. He is not playing sort of a cosmic hide and seek game with man. He is continually giving testimony to Himself. The psalmist says the heaven declare the glory of God. Paul says in Romans 1 that the invisible attributes of God are clearly seen in the creation. If people don’t see God it is because they don’t want to see God. Yet He is the one who is continuously seeking man, saving man, disclosing Himself and revealing Himself to mankind.

Babylon

Babylon                                     RD/Rev.   118c

1)      The description and imagery in Revelation 17 & 18 is based on Old Testament passages, primarily Isaiah 13, 14; Jeremiah 50 & 51, as well as Ezekiel 26-28.

2)      In Isaiah 13 & 14 and Jeremiah 50 & 51, Isaiah and Jeremiah predict the literal, physical destruction of Babylon in extremely graphic terms, and they repeatedly point out that it is going to be sudden, total, and never ever again will there be any habitation at the site of Babylon. Babylon is important in Scripture because it fits within a total flow of the conflict between the city of God and the city of man in the Bible. The city of God, of course, is Jerusalem; the city of man is Babylon. Babylon was founded first by Nimrod in Genesis chapter 10 where Nimrod and his cohorts build the tower of Babel against God. It was a theological statement: “We are going to run history our way; God, you no longer have anything to say about this,” and they are in rebellion against God. The next time we have a reference to Babylon in Mesopotamia is in Genesis 14 where there is an invasion of four kings, led by Amraphel the king of Shinar. Shinar is where Babylon is located. Over against this, at the end of the episode after Abraham destroys those armies with his men, he then brings tribute from the plunder to Melchizedek the king-priest of Salem which is Jerusalem. Throughout the Bible we see this juxtaposition between Babylon and Jerusalem. There is silence after Genesis 14 for some time and this is at a time in ancient history where Babylon experiences its initial rise to fame, has its first major empire and we know it through some of its leaders such as Hammurabi. By the time we get into the eighth century, the time of Hezekiah the king of Judah, the Assyrian empire dominates. That is the background for Isaiah. Babylon is just a major city within the Babylonian empire. Isaiah was written during the reigns of four kings of Judah—Uzziah who dies in 539 BC, so Isaiah begins to prophesy in 740 the year before Uzziah dies, then Jotham, Ahaz, and then Hezekiah. Isaiah dies sometime after Hezekiah dies in 689. In 740 Isaiah begins to prophesy, and by 681 he is probably dead. In 1 Kings 20 we read of a Chaldean who conquers Babylon to re-establish his own little kingdom and he becomes a thorn in the flesh to the Assyrian ruler. For three hundred years Babylon had been under the control of Assyria but under Merodach-Baladan II Babylon began to show some signs of independence and trying to assert itself against its Assyrian leaders. In 710 BC Sargon II finally defeats Marodach-Baladan, but during this time Marodach-Baladan went over to Judah to try to enlist an ally in Hezekiah. Hezekiah very foolishly showed him all the gold and sliver and treasure in the temple. That was going to come back and haunt him later, but in 710 Merodach-Baladan is defeated but isn’t killed. This is the beginning of the rise of Babylon during the Chaldean empire. By 625 when Aher-bani-pal the ruler of the Assyrian empire dies, there is anothert king by the name of Nabopolassar show up and he seizes the throne of Babylon. Aided by the Medes the Babylonians defeat the Assyrians in 609 and there was the ascendancy of what is called the Neo-Chaldean empire under Nabopolassar. He died in 605 and was succeeded by his son Nebuchadnezzar. This is the beginning of the Babylonian empire that is the background for Daniel. Under Nebuchanezzar the Babylonians invade Judah three times—605, 592 and 586. In 539 Cyrus is leading the Persians, there is an alliance between Persians and Medes, and they sneak into Babylon and conquer the city, almost without a shot being fired. Babylon becomes a major capital in the Persian empire and continues to go on in existence for a number of years.

Isaiah 13:1 says: “[This is] The oracle concerning Babylon…” The total and final destruction of Babylon is described in Isaiah 13:17-22. The centre of this section is Isaiah 14:1, 2 which says that after the destruction of Babylon there will be a final restoration of a united Israel in the land, and there will be peace. That didn’t happen historically. This is the centrepiece of the interpretation. Then there is a taunt rehearsing the total destruction of Babylon’s king in 14:3-21, in the middle of which is this reference to the power behind the throne. There is a summary of the Lord’s defeat of Babylon in 14:22, 23.

All of this prophecy is related simply to God’s faithfulness and His encouragement to the people, that no matter how chaotic things look, no matter how many times the nation may be overrun, he will be true to His promises. The same is true to every single believer in Jesus Christ in history. No matter how chaotic things may look in our historical era we know that God is in control, that God will bring about the close of history as he has prophesied and promised, and there will be a time of rest and stability because he is faithful to His promises.

Looking at the comparison of Scripture passages: Jeremiah 50 & 51; Revelation 17 & 18; Isaiah 13.

a)      In these passages there is reference to the evil influence of Babylon and it is compared to drinking wine from a golden cup. Jeremiah 51:7 NASB “Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the LORD, Intoxicating all the earth. The nations have drunk of her wine; Therefore the nations are going mad.” Cf. Revelation 17:3, 4 NASB “And he carried me away in the Spirit into a wilderness; and I saw a woman [Babylon] sitting on a scarlet beast, full of blasphemous names, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was clothed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a gold cup full of abominations and of the unclean things of her immorality.” Revelation 18:6 NASB “Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back {to her} double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.”

b)      The influence of Babylon is compared to dwelling on many waters. Waters is used as a symbol for the nations. Jeremiah 51:13 NASB “O you who dwell by many waters, Abundant in treasures, Your end has come, The measure of your end.” Cf. Revelation 17:1 NASB “Then one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls came and spoke with me, saying, “Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great harlot who sits on many waters.”

c)      Babylon will be surrounded and attacked by many nations whom she has influenced. Isaiah 13:14 NASB “And it will be that like a hunted gazelle, Or like sheep with none to gather {them,} They will each turn to his own people, And each one flee to his own land.” This is the coming judgment on Babylon because the nations will attack her. Jeremiah 51:7 NASB “Babylon has been a golden cup in the hand of the LORD, Intoxicating all the earth. The nations have drunk of her wine; Therefore the nations are going mad.” Cf. Revelation 17:2 NASB “with whom the kings of the earth committed {acts of} immorality, and those who dwell on the earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality.”

d)      They all relate to the same name, they are all identified as Babylon. Isaiah 13:19 NASB “And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” Isaiah 21:9 NASB “Now behold, here comes a troop of riders, horsemen in pairs.” And one said, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon; And all the images of her gods are shattered on the ground’.” Jeremiah 50:1 NASB “The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet.” Cf. Revelation 17:5 NASB “and on her forehead a name {was} written, a mystery, “BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” All of these are identified with the same literal name of Babylon.

Then there are comparisons on how they describe the destruction of the city of Babylon.

a)      Babylon is going to be destroyed suddenly, quickly, and unexpectedly. Jeremiah 51:8 NASB “Suddenly Babylon has fallen and been broken…” Cf. Revelation 18:8 NASB “For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.”

b)      The destruction of the city is described as being accomplished by the Medes who will pillage, plunder and massacre the women and children. Isaiah 13:17 NASB “Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold.” Isaiah 21:2 NASB “…Go up, Elam, lay siege, Media; I have made an end of all the groaning she has caused.” Jeremiah 51:11 NASB “Sharpen the arrows, fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, Because His purpose is against Babylon to destroy it; For it is the vengeance of the LORD, vengeance for His temple.” Jeremiah 51:28 again focuses on the king of the Medes.

c)      Babylon will also be destroyed with an alliance of nations from the north. Jeremiah 50:3 NASB “For a nation has come up against her out of the north; it will make her land an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it. Both man and beast have wandered off, they have gone away!” [9] “For behold, I am going to arouse and bring up against Babylon A horde of great nations from the land of the north, And they will draw up {their} battle lines against her; From there she will be taken captive. Their arrows will be like an expert warrior Who does not return empty-handed.” Jeremiah 51”27 NASB “Lift up a signal in the land, Blow a trumpet among the nations! Consecrate the nations against her, Summon against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz; Appoint a marshal against her, Bring up the horses like bristly locusts.”

d)      Babylon will be destroyed by fire. Jeremiah 51:30; Revelation 17:6; 18:8 all talk about the fact that she will be burned by fire. That did not happen historically.

e)      The prophecies agree that it will never ever again be inhabited. Isaiah 13:19, 20 NASB “And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch {his} tent there, Nor will shepherds make {their flocks} lie down there.” There have been ongoing Arab villages within the confines of the ancient walls of Babylon throughout all time; it has never been totally destroyed. [21] “But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will live there, and shaggy goats will frolic there.” Isaiah 14:23 NASB “I will also make it a possession for the hedgehog and swamps of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of hosts.” Jeremiah 50:13 NASB “Because of the indignation of the LORD she will not be inhabited, But she will be completely desolate; Everyone who passes by Babylon will be horrified And will hiss because of all her wounds.” Jeremiah 51:29 NASB “So the land quakes and writhes, For the purposes of the LORD against Babylon stand, To make the land of Babylon A desolation without inhabitants.” [37] “Babylon will become a heap {of ruins,} a haunt of jackals, An object of horror and hissing, without inhabitants.” This did not happen in 539 BC. Even during the time of the New Testament there was a large population there of 15-20,000.

f)       The whole of Babylon is destroyed. Isaiah 13:5 NASB “They are coming from a far country, From the farthest horizons, The LORD and His instruments of indignation, To destroy the whole land.”

g)      Babylon will be severely punished for her hostility to God and Israel. Jeremiah 50:29 NASB “Summon many against Babylon, All those who bend the bow: Encamp against her on every side, Let there be no escape. Repay her according to her work; According to all that she has done, {so} do to her; For she has become arrogant against the LORD, Against the Holy One of Israel.” Cf. Revelation 18:6 NASB “Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back {to her} double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.”

h)      This time of judgment on Babylon is described as the day of the Lord. Joel chapters 2 & 3 describe the day of the Lord. This is a term usually used for the end period of the Tribulation. Isaiah 13:6-9 NASB “Wail, for the day of the LORD is near! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. Therefore all hands will fall limp, And every man’s heart will melt. They will be terrified, Pains and anguish will take hold of {them;} They will writhe like a woman in labor, They will look at one another in astonishment, Their faces aflame. Behold, the day of the LORD is coming, Cruel, with fury and burning anger, To make the land a desolation; And He will exterminate its sinners from it.” Isaiah 21:31 describes it as labour pains. Jeremiah 51:6 NASB “Flee from the midst of Babylon, And each of you save his life! Do not be destroyed in her punishment, For this is the LORD’S time of vengeance; He is going to render recompense to her.”

i)        The final destruction of Babylon is depicted by the same imagery, of a stone being throne into the Euphrates. Jeremiah 51:63, the stone is throne into the Euphrates, then in verse 64 NASB “and say, ‘Just so shall Babylon sink down and not rise again because of the calamity that I am going to bring upon her; and they will become exhausted.’” Cf. Revelation 18:21 NASB “Then a strong angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, ‘So will Babylon, the great city, be thrown down with violence, and will not be found any longer’.”

j)        The destroyer is the Lord of hosts, a title in the Old Testament that often describes the pre-incarnate Christ as he is leading the armies of Israel in victory. Jeremiah 51”19, 20 NASB “The portion of Jacob is not like these; For the Maker of all is He, And of the tribe of His inheritance; The LORD of hosts is His name. {He says,} ‘You are My war-club, {My} weapon of war; And with you I shatter nations, And with you I destroy kingdoms’.” [55] “For the LORD is going to destroy Babylon, And He will make {her} loud noise vanish from her. And their waves will roar like many waters; The tumult of their voices sounds forth.” Cf. Revelation 17:14 NASB “These will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and those who are with Him {are the} called and chosen and faithful.”

k)      God’s people are told to flee Babylon when Babylon is destroyed. Jeremiah 51:6 NASB “Flee from the midst of Babylon, And each of you save his life! Do not be destroyed in her punishment, For this is the LORD’S time of vengeance; He is going to render recompense to her.” [45] “Come forth from her midst, My people, And each of you save yourselves From the fierce anger of the LORD.” Cf. Revelation 18:4 NASB “I heard another voice from heaven, saying, ‘Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues’.”  This didn’t happen. Daniel stayed in Babylon, he didn’t flee. It wasn’t fulfilled in the ancient world.

l)        Heaven rejoices at the final destruction of Babylon. Jeremiah 51:48; Revelation 18:20.

m)    Following the destruction there is peace on the whole earth. Isaiah 14:7 NASB “The whole earth is at rest {and} is quiet; They break forth into shouts of joy.” Following the destruction of Babylon Israel and Judah are reunited, they come back to the Lord, and there is a time of spiritual obedience to the Lord, and the whole earth is at peace. This did not happen in 539; it did not happen in the Old Testament. These judgments in the Old Testament become fulfilled at the end of the Tribulation in Revelation 17 & 18.

n)      Following the destruction Israel is united and obedient to the Lord. Isaiah 14:1-4 NASB “When the LORD will have compassion on Jacob and again choose Israel, and settle them in their own land, then strangers will join them and attach themselves to the house of Jacob. The peoples will take them along and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the LORD as male servants and female servants; and they will take their captors captive and will rule over their oppressors. And it will be in the day when the LORD gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in which you have been enslaved, that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased, {And how} fury has ceased!” Jeremiah 50:4 NASB “In those days and at that time,” declares the LORD, “the sons of Israel will come, {both} they and the sons of Judah as well; they will go along weeping as they go, and it will be the LORD their God they will seek. [5] They will ask for the way to Zion, {turning} their faces in its direction; they will come that they may join themselves to the LORD {in} an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.”

Summary

Babylon will be destroyed unexpectedly, Jeremiah 51:8. That did not happen. It was conquered but not destroyed. Babylon was to be destroyed completely, according to Jeremiah 50:3, 39, 40; 51:29. The Persians came from the east and not the north, Babylon remained a major city for another 500 years at least. Though the numbers have diminished throughout the church age Arabs have lived there. The judgment described in Isaiah 13 as final and complete; that has not yet happened. Furthermore, the prophesy in Jeremiah 51 says that the stones and the bricks of destroyed Babylon would never be renewed (51:26). However, according to one who wrote in 1875: “To this day there are men who have no other trade than that of gathering bricks in this vast heat and taking them for sale in the neighbouring towns and villages, and even to Baghdad…” The prophecies have not been fulfilled.

Jeremiah warns all the Jews to flee Babylon prior to the destruction (50:8). But that did not happen.

Israel and Judah are to be reunited in a time of spiritual revival, according to Jeremiah 50:4, 5. That did not happen.

The modern Iraqis have been rebuilding Babylon. It started in the early years of Saddam Hussein in the early eighties.

The point of all this is that you can’t just go into revelation and pick out a chapter and say you can figure out what it means. You have to understand the whole flow of God’s purposes in history. That plan and purpose focuses on the cross where Satan was defeated. But the final battle when judgment of sin and evil and injustice takes place is at the Battle of Armageddon, that great end-time period at the end of the Tribulation. And we recognize that from the Old Testament all the way up to the present that has been prophesied. So when we go back to Isaiah 13 & 14 and look at the content there we realize that what Isaiah was talking about was not just the final judgment of future Babylon but that the leader was the Antichrist, and the one who empowers the Antichrist is Satan. So that Isaiah 14:12-14 depicts the arrogance of Satan as he originally rebelled against God and attempted make himself God and to be worshipped as God. It is from that that all sin and evil in the universe derives.

Backsliding Believer

What are they dynamics of a backsliding believer?

RD/Heb. 046b

   1. First of all it always begins with a decision to stop walking by the Holy Spirit.

NKJ Galatians 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Ou me, the double negative plus the subjunctive verb is the strongest negation is the Greek.  So there is always a decision to stop walking by the Holy Spirit.  So the default position for everybody is the flesh.  You don’t have to decide to sin, you just have to decide to stop walking by the Spirit and you automatically default to walking by the flesh.

   2. Then if you stay there and have continued carnality and continue to walk by the flesh it leads to an increased and heightened arrogance. You become more and more oriented to yourself, your own agenda, and your own desires rather than God’s desires.  It is your word rather than God’s Word.   

   3. Then we begin to refine those arrogance skills that we have talked about – self absorption where we become more and more concerned with our own problems, our hurts and our emotions and how we feel.

You hear women in marriage counseling say, “He doesn’t pay attention to how I feel.”

The man comes in and he expresses it the same way.  “Well, I have got this and I have got that.”

Everybody is the same way.  They are focusing on their own world and their own life and their own feelings and their own agendas.   They are not coming out of themselves.  It is just arrogance, arrogance, and arrogance.  Arrogance is tenacious folks if you don’t realize that.   Self absorption leads to self indulgence. The more you are absorbed with your own problems, your own heartaches, your own issues, the more begin to indulge yourself in that.

I remember when I was a kid and used to get sick my mother would say, “Don’t indulge yourself in that. Get up, get dressed and go to school.”

“Ah, but my throat hurts.”

“Get dressed and go to school.  Don’t give into it.”

That is what happens.   The more you become self absorbed, the more you give into it.    You indulge your arrogance and eventually that leads to a distortion of reality, self deception.    As you go through self deception, you begin to justify that self deception.  You build rationalizations that make a lot of sense to us.  We justify our carnality.  We justify our behavior.  Deep down we know this is wrong.  It is not what the Bible says.  But, it is comfortable to us so we build these rationalizations that keep us in our comfort zone.  After all, God understands.  We are sinners.  He understands, doesn’t He?  Then what we have done is replace God with ourselves.   That leads to self deification.  This is an ongoing cycle that keeps going and going and going until ultimately we end up in self destruction.

   4. In the midst of this there is vacillation in decision making.  This is what I referenced a few minutes ago in James 1:5.  The dypseuchos believer, the two-souled believer is waffling between two different views.

   5. What happens then is we start seeking happiness in the details of life.  God is no longer the source of our happiness and joy.  We are going to find peace and happiness and success in money, friendship, marriage, sex, drugs, alcohol, partying, good times, good feelings or indulging our emotions.  We get on a details-of-life roller coaster.  This is the leeks and garlic syndrome of the Jews coming out of Egypt. 

As soon as they started hitting hard times, they rejected doctrine and they said, “I don’t want God’s wonderful provision of manna.”

Manna was a supernatural food, the angelic bread so to speak, that God provided for the Jews to give them complete sustenance as they were going through the wilderness.  Every morning there it was – manna from the Hebrew word men, meaning what?

They looked at it and they went, “What it is.”

It tasted like Shipley donuts.  I am convinced.  Hot Shipley donuts every morning.  What a deal!  They got tired of it after a while.  You can get tired of anything.  They had the same thing morning after morning after morning.  But they got tired of God’s grace so they said “We want the leeks and garlics of Egypt.

“We want to go get Mexican food – something with a little spice in it.  We are tired of this.  We want to go back and get the good Mexican food or Cajun food that they had over in Egypt.”

   6. This leads to soul poverty.  That is exactly what Psalm 106 is talking about.  The wilderness generation in their rebelliousness wanted these different things for their life.

NKJ Psalm 106:15 And He gave them their request, But sent leanness into their soul.

Now that is a powerful verse.  They got what they wanted, what they thought would make them happy.  And it didn’t.  He sent leanness to their soul.  They were empty.  It is soul poverty.  It reinforces unhappiness and then they have to go back on that frantic search for happiness and find something else.  The more arrogant you are, the more carnal you are, the more you deteriorate in this downward spiral. 

   7. Along with this what happens is previously learned doctrine begins to be ignored or lost or forgotten.  You can’t remember that promise.  “Where is it?  It is somewhere in the Old Testament.  It had something to do with God.  Yeah.  I was supposed to trust Him.  Yeah.”  You forget the doctrine that you learned.  It is no longer there.  Over and over and over again you build calluses in the soul to the Holy Spirit who is trying to bring the doctrine up for remembrance.  So gradually doctrine is ignored, lost or forgotten.  You become an adolescent believer, but now you are acting like a baby.

Remember when you were an adolescent and you threw a temper tantrum and your mom said, “Quit acting like a baby.”

She didn’t mean you were an infant chronologically.  She meant you should have been acting more mature, but you were still acting like a baby.  It was an insult.  Of course the only words we have in the English for baby are baby and infant and maybe one other word and that is pretty much it.  In the Greek there were four or five other words which we will get into as we go through this passage.

   8. As we forget doctrine it creates a vacuum in the soul that sucks in paganism.  It sucks in more and more human viewpoint.  We start reading psychology.

“I am not happy.  I need some help. Let me turn on Dr. Phil.”  So you watch Dr. Phil or you go down to the bookstore and you get “I am Okay, You are Okay.”  Or you decide to keep up the Christian façade and you go to the Christian book store and you get the Christian version of “I am Okay, You are Okay.”

You go read Robert Schuler who said, “Your problem isn’t sin.  It’s self esteem.  Jesus didn’t die for sin.  That is an antiquated concept.  You need to have your self esteem pumped up.  Jesus died to give you self esteem.  You knew that didn’t you?  Sin is not a problem.  You need self esteem.”   

The vacuum in the soul starts sucking in surrounding paganism.

   9. As paganism dominates the soul you enter into cosmic or pagan degeneracy.  You see the concept in the Bible of worldliness is really the idea of pagan culture – whatever the values are, whatever the ultimate view of reality, metaphysics.  That is what metaphysics means.  It is your ultimate view of reality - whatever the ultimate view of your surrounding culture is whether it is a polytheistic culture, Greek culture, Egyptian culture, Indian-Hindu culture, western American secular pragmatic culture – that is the cosmic thinking.  It has a way of knowing, an epistemology.  It has an ethics system.  It has an aesthetic system.  That is all the philosophy of the world.  That is all in cosmic thinking.  So we enter pagan degeneracy.

Now pagan degeneracy or cosmic degeneracy manifests itself two ways.  Of course this relates to the trends of the sin nature.   On the one hand it is related to immoral degeneracy.  This is a term everybody can understand.  We all know immoral degenerates.  If you don’t I can take you down to Montrose after class and I can show you a lot of them.  They are involved in all kinds of things.  It can be immoral degeneracy.  It can be sexual immoral degeneracy.  It can be ethical immoral degeneracy.  Nobody has a problem with immoral degeneracy.  It is the rejection of absolutes.  It rejects the absolutes of reason and empiricism.  It leads to irrationalism and mysticism.    You get a rise of irrationalism and mysticism that dominates the culture at large.  It sneaks into the church in all kinds of different ways.  This leads to licentiousness.  It is a rejection of values.

I was thinking in the Bible today, “What is a group would be a good illustration of this? A good biblical group that pictures licentiousness and immoral degeneracy.”  You have to go to the Old Testament.

On the other side you have moral degeneracy.  Most people don’t put those words together, moral degeneracy.  How can you be a moral degenerate?  We think of a degenerate as some kind of homosexual perverted deviant.  But there are also moral degenerates.  Moral degenerates operate on autonomous reasoning and empiricism.  They have a lot of order and structure in their lives.  They can be very moral.  They trend towards asceticism and self righteousness.

Who are the two groups in the Scriptures that manifest these two characteristics?  The immoral degenerate is picture by the fertility worshippers in the Old Testament.  These were the ones going down to the temple of Baal and Canaan and they got involved with ritual prostititutes in the ritual temples.  What were they worshipping?  They were worshipping fertility and productivity and prosperity.  We have the same thing today.  It may not be as sexual, but it is prosperity theology.  It is the health and wealth gospel.  That is just the modern version of the old fertility worship.  Go down to Lakewood and you will find all kinds of fertility worship there.  That’s what it is.  It is the health and wealth gospel.  They are immoral degenerates.

“Oh, but they are such good people.”

But they combine it with moral degeneracy like the Pharisees.   

Jesus said, “You are just a whitewashed bunch of sepulchers.  You have whitewashed the outside so you look good, but inside are dead men’s bones.”  It’s rotten.  You have all kinds of maggots crawling around inside of you.  On the outside you look real good.  But on the   insides the soul is just a mess.”

So a backsliding believer can imitate this because he as he deteriorates he picks up the paganism of the culture around him.  Paganism always tends (just like the old sin nature) to go to either one of these two trends.  

So the result that the writer of Hebrews says is, “I can’t talk about what I want to talk about now because you have become lazy and hard of hearing spiritually.”  This is the dynamic that produced this.

He is going to go on to say in verse in verses 12 -13.

NKJ Hebrews 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food.

NKJ Hebrews 5:13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.

He uses the word napios.  If you go over to I Corinthians 3 he uses the word napios for a babe there.  Most people want to take that as an infant Christian.  But in both passages you are dealing with a group of believers that should have been more mature but have reversed course due to carnality.  Instead of portraying their adolescent status as a believer they are acting like a baby.  That Greek word napios was often used as an insult, as a pejorative, as a form of ridicule.  It is somebody who had been more mature and they are acting like a baby.  It is not talking about being a baby in terms of spiritual infancy.  It is talking about somebody who should have been older and was more mature, but they are acting like a baby.  Why?  Because they are walking according to the sin nature and have reversed course in the spiritual life.

So here we have a description of what happens when you have a sluggish backslider.  You fall apart in your priorities and your value system.  The Word of God is no longer the centerpiece of your life.   It may take ten, twenty or thirty years before it gets exposed; but it always gets exposed and it always destroys your life.

Balaam

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‎Balaam and the Will of God. .

‎ RD/Gen. 129b

‎NKJ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

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‎For the last three weeks or so we have been studying the issue of divine guidance.  How do you know God’s will?  We are coming to the end of this study.  Last week we got very close, but we didn’t have enough time to go into the last illustration that I wanted to use from the Old Testament which is one of the more unusual episodes in the Old Testament.  It incorporates all three kinds of divine will that we have spoken of.  But when we come to this question of divine guidance, as I pointed out, most Christians have bizarre views of how to know God’s will. They come up with all kinds of mystical ways to discern God’s will.

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‎Somebody sent me an illustration of this the other day that I have to share with you because it’s so personal.  After starting a new diet the old lady in the cartoon says, “I altered my drive to work to avoid passing my favorite bakery.  I accidentally drove by the bakery this morning and as I approached there in the window was a host of goodies.  I felt this was no accident so I prayed, “Lord, it’s up to you.  If you want me to have any of those delicious goodies, create a parking place for me directly in front of the bakery.  And sure enough on the eighth time around the block there it was.  God is so good.”

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‎We are so silly sometimes in the way we try to figure out what God wants us to do and the way we try to get God to conform His will to our will.  We aren’t a whole lot different from Gideon as we saw in our study of Gideon a couple of weeks ago.

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‎So tonight I want to look at another instance of someone who tries to resist God’s will.   In the Balaam episode in we have an example of three different kinds of divine will.  Remember I talked about the fact that we have the decreed will of God or the sovereign will of God which includes God’s permissive will.  The sovereign will of God is God’s decree for what will take place in human history according to His foreknowledge.  So we have the sovereign will of God.  We don’t know what it is until it happens.  It includes good and it includes evil.  That is why as a subcategory of God’s sovereign will, we have the category of God’s permissive will – what He allows man to do in terms of exercising his volition.  But even when man has freedom to exercise his volition, that is under the sovereign will of God so that you may want to exercise your volition freely in X direction and God just isn’t going to let you.  Have you ever noticed that before?  Some of you who have a predilection towards carnality at one time or another in your life have known that you really wanted to do something that you knew you shouldn’t do and God just wouldn’t let you do it.  That is called the God’s overriding will of God.  So we have God’s sovereign will; we have God’s permissive will; we have God’s overriding will. We also have God’s decreed or moral will – what He tells us specifically to do.  So those are really four kinds of divine will - God’s sovereign will which includes His permissive will, His sovereign will, His overriding will, and His decreed will.

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‎We see all of these in this episode of Balaam.  The episode of Balaam covers a lot of territory.  It covers and then even though we don’t know it until later on, it really is the backdrop to what happens in .  When you realize that in the book of Numbers you have 4 chapters that are related to Balaam the son of Beor and there are only 36 chapters in the whole book of Numbers and 5 of them are dedicated to Balaam, you see that God the Holy Spirit seems to emphasize this event over above everything else that is going on in Numbers.  He doesn’t spend that much time on Kadesh Barnea.  He doesn’t spend that much time on Miriam and Aaron’s rebellion against Moses.  He doesn’t spend that much time on Moses’ sin of disobedience where he got angry at the people and struck the rock for water instead of speaking to it as God commanded.  All of which were sins that were determinative for the history of Israel.  But then all of a sudden we come to in this bizarre character of Balaam. Some people think he is demon possessed.  Other people thought that he was a rebellious believer.  The rabbis thought he was almost the devil embodied.  Some of the ways in which they describe the things that went on here boarder on the bizarre. I am not even going to explain some of them.  They boarder on pornography. That will give you a little bit of an idea. Now your imaginations are going to run wild and I have distracted you for the rest of the hour.

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gives us the story of Balaam.  Balaam is a diviner. He is not called a prophet here.  He is a diviner.  He is not a Jew.  He is a cousin.   He is from the land of Aram back where Abram’s descendents lived in the area that we studied in our study of Genesis.  In we come to a situation where the Jews have come around from Kadesh Barnea and they are about to enter into the land.

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‎Just off the map is the location of Kadesh Barnea.  As the Jews came to Kadesh Barnea for the second time in preparation for going into the land, they come across the southern part of Israel known as the Negev, cross south of the Dead Sea and God instructed them to completely go around Moab and Amon because God had guaranteed their inheritance.  So they had to go all the way to the east side of Moab and go completely around Moab as they came back after they went north of Moab and Amon and came back to the west to cross the Jordan River to go into the land of Canaan.

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‎They did battle with Sihon and with Og.  Sihon was the king of the Amorites.  Og was the king of Basham.  They defeated them in two battles that secured for the Jews all of the trans-Jordan. That is the land across the Jordan on the east side of the Jordan.  It literally put the fear of God into the Moabites.  Twice it mentions the fear and the dread that they felt. They were only 40 years removed from the Exodus.  And they had heard all the stories about what the God of the Jews had done to the Egyptians with the ten plagues and then the complete and massive destruction of the Egyptian army.  In fact you don’t hear anything about the Egyptian army for about 200-300 years in Scripture because the culture was decimated as a result of God’s judgment on them.  This put fear into the hearts of all of the Canaanites.  That is one of the weird little ironies that you get into here.  When the Jews went to Kadesh Barnea and were sending the twelve spies into the land the ten spies came back saying, “We can’t do this.  We are scared to death.  There are giants in the land.  There are way too many people.  They have fortified cities.  We can’t do it.”

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‎You know the story.  Joshua and Caleb stood firm.  They said, “We can trust God.”

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‎But here you have these 10 spies who are scared to death and they don’t realize that the Canaanites had all heard the stories of what had happened a year or two before.  They are more afraid of the Jews and what their God is going to do to them than the Jews are.  They had this tremendous opportunity to take advantage of that and to defeat them.   Because they failed to trust God they had to spend another 38 years wandering around in the wilderness before the next generation would be allowed to make that crossing into Jordan.

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‎This is the setting for .  The Jews have now come to the plains of Moab which is just to the east of the Jordan River just north of the Dead Sea.

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‎It is there that Moses gives his parting speech to them.  It is his last sermon which is the book of Deuteronomy.  That comes after the events that we area talking about.  As they approach the plains of Moab, the king of Moab is scared to death.  He decides that he is going to do something to destroy the Jews.  He knows that he can’t defeat them naturally.  He doesn’t have the power to.  Of course they must have this powerful God. So what he is going to do in typical pagan manner, he is going to get some kind of magic or supernatural power to counter whatever the supernatural power is that the Jews had.  So he is going to go to a diviner who lives up in the area of Aram and bring this hit man in from outside to put a curse on the Jews to destroy them.  In the background of this you have divination and you have magic and you have the true form of prophecy versus a false form of prophecy.  A lot of things we have studied in the last few months come together in this situation.

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‎NKJ Then the children of Israel moved, and camped in the plains of Moab on the side of the Jordan across from Jericho.

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‎NKJ Now Balak the son of Zippor saw all that Israel had done to the Amorites.

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‎NKJ And Moab was exceedingly afraid of the people because they were many, and Moab was sick with dread because of the children of Israel.

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‎Notice the double emphasis there on the fear factor.

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‎NKJ So Moab said to the elders of Midian, “Now this company will lick up everything around us, as an ox licks up the grass of the field.” And Balak the son of Zippor was king of the Moabites at that time.

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‎That would be Balak the king of Moab.

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‎There are so many he is afraid they are going to devour all of the food and all of the resources.  By the presence of 2-3 million Jews on the boarder, they were going to wipe out all of the natural resources for food.

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‎NKJ Then he sent messengers to Balaam the son of Beor at Pethor, which is near the River in the land of the sons of his people, to call him, saying: “Look, a people has come from Egypt. See, they cover the face of the earth, and are settling next to me!

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‎Before we get started, let’s address a question that always comes up.  Is Balaam a believer?  If you don’t know the story what happens in Balaam is presented as a diviner, as someone who has this magical power to bless and curse.  This is expressed in verse 6.

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‎In his invitation, Balak says…

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‎NKJ “Therefore please come at once, curse this people for me, for they are too mighty for me. Perhaps I shall be able to defeat them and drive them out of the land, for I know that he whom you bless is blessed, and he whom you curse is cursed.”

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‎Notice the pagan reliance upon magic and power there.  It is sort of New Age mysticism in an old age format.

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‎Does that verbiage sound familiar to anybody?  That is the same verbiage we have in the Abrahamic Covenant. I think that the writer puts it that way so that we recognize that parallel there.

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‎Is Balaam a believer?  What he is going to do is have three or four episodes.  Finally God is going to let him come.  He is going to try to curse Israel.  He is not going to be able to curse Israel.  Every time he opens his mouth a legitimate revelatory prophecy from God comes out that doesn’t fit the pattern of typical divination.  You have all kinds of divination that was used at this particular time.  It doesn’t fit any of those patterns.  It is unique because God’s way of revealing Himself and communicating to man is always categorically different from the pagan way of doing things which we will see.

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‎In the midst of this we have the episode with Balaam and his talking ass because God performs this miracle and God allows the donkey to talk to him when he is abusing him and mistreating him.  He uses that to create a teaching moment in the life of carnal Balaam.

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‎So the question is, Is Balaam a believer?  There is a tremendous amount of debate over this.  You have one group that looks at Balaam who is referred to and used three times in the New Testament as an illustration of evil. In fact we have seen him a couple of times in where he is compared to the Nicolaitans, this group of people who were promoting false doctrine in the early church in Pergamum and Thyatira.  So because he is used that way in and he is used that way in Jude as an example of evil, many people think automatically that he wasn’t a believer.  However there are some things we need to pay attention to in the text. First of all in , Balaam refers to God as Yahweh my God.

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‎NKJ Then Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, “Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more.

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‎So he recognizes who Yahweh is and refers to Him as my God.

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‎Second, he confesses his sin.  When he realizes his sin after the episode with the talking ass, he confesses his sin in .

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‎NKJ And Balaam said to the Angel of the LORD, “I have sinned, for I did not know You stood in the way against me. Now therefore, if it displeases You, I will turn back.”

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‎He clearly recognizes who it is that is opposing him on his way to Moab to curse Israel.

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‎Third Balaam expresses a desire to die with the righteousness in .

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‎NKJ “Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number one-fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my end be like his!”

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‎He wants to die like and in the company of the righteous.

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‎He prophesies in .

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‎NKJ And Balaam raised his eyes, and saw Israel encamped according to their tribes; and the Spirit of God came upon him.

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‎There is not a single example that I can find in the Old Testament where the Spirit of God comes upon an unbeliever.  Now you have a number of examples especially in Judges where the Spirit of God comes upon believers like Jephthah who defeats the enemy afterward.  Then he makes this foolish vow to offer a burnt offering whatever comes out of the door of his house to greet him when he comes home.  When he comes home victorious, his daughter runs out the front door of the house to greet him and welcome him home.   The text says that he did to her as he vowed.  He offered her as a burnt offering – very pagan practice.  That is the point.   These leaders of Israel during the time of the Judges were acting like the pagan nations surrounding them.

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‎The Spirit of the Lord comes upon Samson several times.  Sampson is a womanizer.  He never met a fleshly desire that he didn’t want to instantly give into.  He is a picture an extremely lust oriented, uncontrolled, unself-disciplined individual.

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‎Then you have Saul also.  The Spirit of God comes upon Saul.  Saul ultimately becomes a believer.  He ultimately becomes disobedient and rebellious and is disciplined by God and the kingdom is taken from him.  People will try to argue that these aren’t believers, but the text never says that.  In fact with Saul we are also told not only that the Spirit came upon him and he prophesized, but we are also told that at the end of his life when Samuel comes back from the grave (the only time that ever happened in history where you have a true example of somebody that God allowed to come back and speak) Samuel came back and he said to Saul, “Tomorrow you and your sons will be with me.”

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‎“Being with me” must be taken literally to mean that they would be with Samuel in paradise, not in heaven because Old Testament saints weren’t transferred to heaven until after the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  So we have the situation where you have pagans who are operating on paganism, but they are believers.  They become believers.   In our study of Genesis just recently as we were studying in , we have this one verse I pointed this out several weeks ago when we studied this, it is not mentioned by most people when they talk about Abraham’s background.  Abraham came out of Ur of the Chaldeans.  They always go to this passage in Joshua that talks about the fact that the ancestors of Abraham worshipped the moon gods back in Ur of the Chaldeans.  So everybody camps out on that verse and talks about how Abraham’s ancestors were all idolatrous and followed the idolatrous religions of the Chaldeans, but Abraham for some reason became a worshipper of God. People just overlook where Laban who remember is a cousin of Abraham, says to Jacob, “The God of Abraham the God of Nahor (who is Abraham’s brother) and the God of their father (which would be Terah) judge between us.”

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‎In that statement he clearly recognizes that Abrahams father Terah wasn’t just this moon worshipping, star gazing, pagan in Ur of the Chaldeans; but he also knew who the God of the Bible was and He knew who the creator God was.  He had a syncretistic religion and he was mixed up and involved in paganism as well as understanding what the truth is.  This was typical in that era especially outside the land.

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‎So now we fast forward from Abraham in about 2100 BC to this episode with Balaam in Number 22 in 1400 BC.  So we fast forward 600 years. There is still evidence and a witness of the true God outside of Israel.  Balaam is an example of that.  It is a confused syncretistic religious system.  He is a believer and he does have an understanding of who Yahweh My God is.  He is involved in carnality and paganism.  This whole almost a cult that operated in his area of Mesopotamia.

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‎We are told back in that they sent to Beor at Pethor.  Pethor is located on the Euphrates River some where about where the modern border of Iraq and Syria exists.  So it is probably a little bit north of there.  It was an ancient city that has been identified called Pitru.  It’s near the archeological site of Mari which was discovered along the Euphrates in 1933.  We have discovered hundreds of documents from cult from Mari that indicate that there was this divination cult that operated out of that particular region.  They were producing all of these soothsayers.  They were a bunch of gypsies.  They were fortune tellers.   They were into divination and hepatoscopy which is reading liver.  They had this whole science where they mapped a liver.  They would divide it all up into sections.  They would kill an animal and take the liver out and they would dissect the liver and read each section of the liver and then they would tell fortunes from it.  Today we are so much milder.  We have palm reading and we have tarot card reading.  I don’t see this so much - maybe the FCC got a hold of them.  It used to be every night if you stayed up late you could find some 900 number you could call and you could talk to all kinds of people who would tell you your fortune.  You had the same thing in the ancient world.  They had a reputation for being able to cast spells on people - the whole occult magic thing where they would curse people. So Balak thinks he can call on Balaam and bring Balaam over to curse the Jews and he will destroy the Jews. 

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‎In this whole episode you see this polemic that is going on between Yahweh the God of Israel and the false gods of the nations.  Now you know what I mean by a polemic.  It is like a debate.  It is a war.  God is constantly juxtaposing His truth and His reality over against the fabrications of paganism. You see this throughout the Old Testament.  Most of the time it is subtle and it gets lost in translation.  But the average English reader picks up his Bible and starts reading .

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‎NKJ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

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‎We read this and say, “Isn’t that nice? On the first day God creates light and separated it from the darkness.

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‎But if you were a Babylonia in the ancient world reading that you would be thinking in terms of the Babylonian gods that you were worshipping and you were saying, “This god of the Jews is the creator of my god of light.”

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‎There is this subtle polemic going on where the God of the Bible is constantly being shown to be in control and superior to whatever the gods or goddesses are of the pagan culture there.  Because we are so unfamiliar with the culture of the ancient world and religious systems of the ancient world, we don’t catch these digs that the Holy Spirit makes in almost every chapter against the thinking of the various pagan systems all around Israel.

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‎I remember in my first year at Dallas Seminary I read a master’s thesis that was written on the polemics of over against the Babylonian gods and goddesses.  This is when it first opened my eyes to this whole thing.   Then when you come to Exodus and you have the ten plagues and when God turns the Nile to blood.  It’s a polemic that the God of the Jews is superior to the Nile god of the Egyptians.  Every one of the plagues has something to do with the God of Israel demonstrating His superiority over some god or goddess in the Egyptian religious system.  So you constantly have the Scripture making sometime subtle sometimes more overt statements of how God and the whole thinking of the Scripture is superior to the thinking of the gods and goddesses of the pagans around them.

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‎You even see that in the names that are used here.  For example, in the name of Balaam we have the Hebrew word which means destruction or devouring in compound with the Hebrew word meaning people in meaning people.  So his name means the destroyer of the people.  But Balaam wasn’t a Jew was he?  In Aramaic his name probably meant the divine uncle who brings forth.  It was a very positive name.  In the ancient world they had names that meant things and revealed something about their character.  So this would say something about this being a man who is very productive and a source of blessing for those around him. The Jewish writers would take his name and make a pun on it.  And so in Hebrew his name meant destroyer of the people.  He is going to be hired by Balak the king of Moab.  Balak means the devastator.  So here the devastator hires the destroyer and God of the Jews wipes out both of them. So you see this play that is going on in the background that we miss in English because we are so divorced from the culture and language and everything else.  God is constantly using all different levels of communication in the text to demonstrate the superiority of His power and His purpose.  The king of Moab calls for Balaam and wants Balaam to come and curse Israel.  Before he does that God appears to him.

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‎NKJ Then God came to Balaam and said, “Who are these men with you?”

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‎NKJ So Balaam said to God, “Balak the son of Zippor, king of Moab, has sent to me, saying,

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‎NKJ ‘Look, a people has come out of Egypt, and they cover the face of the earth. Come now, curse them for me; perhaps I shall be able to overpower them and drive them out.’ “

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‎NKJ And God said to Balaam, “You shall not go with them; you shall not curse the people, for they are blessed.”

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‎What kind of will of God is that?  Think about this.  Is this the sovereign will of God?  Is this the permissive will of God?  Is this the decreed will of God?  Or is this the overriding will of God?  This is the decreed will of God.  God is stating specifically through special revelation to Balaam that he is not to leave home.  He is not to go with him.  He is not to go and curse the Jews.  So the next morning Balaam gets up and he has to be obedient to God.  When God speaks and you know it is God speaking and you can’t do anything else.

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‎NKJ So Balaam rose in the morning and said to the princes of Balak, “Go back to your land, for the LORD has refused to give me permission to go with you.”

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‎So they go back to Balak.  This must have taken some time because it is 300-400 miles from Moab to Pethor where he is located.

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‎NKJ And the princes of Moab rose and went to Balak, and said, “Balaam refuses to come with us.”

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‎Balak sent another delegation to him.  Now they are going to offer a bribe.

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‎NKJ Then Balak again sent princes, more numerous and more honorable than they.

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‎Honor in the Scripture always has to do with pay.  Just as a side note when it comes over to I Timothy, Paul says that an elder is worth double honor.  That doesn’t mean that you are nicer to the pastor, it means that he is supposed to get twice the pay of anybody else.  Just thought I would throw that in.  That is how honor is used in the Scripture.  Honor refers to giving financial remuneration to somebody.

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‎NKJ ‘for I will certainly honor you greatly, and I will do whatever you say to me. Therefore please come, curse this people for me.’ “

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‎In other words, I am going to give you a big paycheck if you will come and curse Israel.   There will be a great financial reward to you.

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‎NKJ Then Balaam answered and said to the servants of Balak, “Though Balak were to give me his house full of silver and gold, I could not go beyond the word of the LORD my God, to do less or more.

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‎So he recognizes the authority of God and that God has given him direct revelation that he can’t do that.

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‎NKJ “Now therefore, please, you also stay here tonight, that I may know what more the LORD will say to me.”

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‎Now he is going to start bargaining with God.  He is going to see if he can’t find a loophole somewhere in God’s decreed will that will allow him to go with the people.

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‎NKJ And God came to Balaam at night and said to him, “If the men come to call you, rise and go with them; but only the word which I speak to you -- that you shall do.”

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‎Now what do we have?  What kind of will is this?  Is this the sovereign will of God?  Is this the permissive will of God?  Is this the decreed will of God?  Or is this the overriding will of God?  What do we have here?  We have almost a correlation between the permissive will of God and the decreed will of God because God is revealing what His permissive will is here.

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‎Of course Balaam wants to take advantage of that.  He is thinking, “If I can just get down there then I can go ahead and curse Israel.”

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‎God recognizes that is what he is doing.

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‎NKJ Then God’s anger was aroused because he went, and the Angel of the LORD took His stand in the way as an adversary against him. And he was riding on his donkey, and his two servants were with him.

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‎God did not suddenly realize what Balaam was going to do and was going to take advantage of him.  But the anger of God always has to do with the condemnation of divine justice.  God in His omniscience knew millennia before this that Balaam was going to try to take advantage of God’s permissive will.  If God has always known that, has God always been angry?  That is were you get into the silliness of thinking that these emotions in God are what we think of as emotion.  The phraseology “the wrath of God” is for the most part an anthropopathism in the Scripture used to express the severity of God’s judgment.

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‎We might talk about going to court and say, “The judge threw the book at me.”

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‎We don’t literally mean that the judge picked up a law book and threw it at us.   We are using it as an illustration of the severity of his judgment.  We experienced the wrath of the court.  We didn’t have a judge that got angry with us.  Nobody would want an emotional judge.  We want a judge who is fair and objective even if he does throw the book at us.  So God’s anger indicates that God in His justice is going to judge or condemn Balaam.  He is going to discipline Balaam. God’s anger is aroused.   He went and the Angel of the Lord took his stand in the way as an adversary against him.  He is going down along the path and the angel of the Lord appears in front of him, but only the donkey sees the Angel of the Lord.  The Angel of the Lord is pictured here as large and powerful and dressed like a warrior.  The donkey of course is no dummy and wants to get out of the way.

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‎NKJ Now the donkey saw the Angel of the LORD standing in the way with His drawn sword in His hand, and the donkey turned aside out of the way and went into the field. So Balaam struck the donkey to turn her back onto the road.

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‎He is impatient.  He is angry.  So he started beating the donkey.

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‎NKJ Then the Angel of the LORD stood in a narrow path between the vineyards, with a wall on this side and a wall on that side.

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‎NKJ And when the donkey saw the Angel of the LORD, she pushed herself against the wall and crushed Balaam’s foot against the wall; so he struck her again.

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‎Then there is a third encounter.

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‎NKJ Then the Angel of the LORD went further, and stood in a narrow place where there was no way to turn either to the right hand or to the left.

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‎NKJ And when the donkey saw the Angel of the LORD, she lay down under Balaam; so Balaam’s anger was aroused, and he struck the donkey with his staff.

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‎She refused to go forward.

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‎The donkey is talking.  There is such great humor in this.  The writers of Scripture are making such a fool out of Balaam in all of this and portraying him with a lack of respect.  He is such an idiot.

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‎NKJ Then the LORD opened the mouth of the donkey, and she said to Balaam, “What have I done to you, that you have struck me these three times?”

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‎Balaam doesn’t blink.  He starts talking to the donkey.

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‎NKJ And Balaam said to the donkey, “Because you have abused me. I wish there were a sword in my hand, for now I would kill you!”

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‎Isn’t that typical?  We get mad at somebody because they are doing the right thing and we get made at them because they won’t let us do what we want to do.

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‎NKJ So the donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your donkey on which you have ridden, ever since I became yours, to this day? Was I ever disposed to do this to you?” And he said, “No.”

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‎“Did I ever do anything like this to you before? No?  Don’t you think there might be a good reason?  I have been protecting you.” 

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‎At that point the Angel of the Lord opens Balaam’s eyes and he sees the angel of the Lord standing there.

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‎The point of all of this is to indicate something about the relationship of the beast of burden that was to serve Balaam and an analogy being drawn in Balaam’s dense head that he is to serve God and do what God tells him to do.

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‎NKJ And the Angel of the LORD said to him, “Why have you struck your donkey these three times? Behold, I have come out to stand against you, because your way is perverse before Me.

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‎The donkey hasn’t done anything wrong to you.  Israel hasn’t done anything wrong to you.  Why do you want to curse them? There is this analogy there.

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‎In this what God is doing is He is going to override Balaam’s will.  What does Balaam want to do?  Balaam wants to get the money and curse Israel.  But God is going to demonstrate His sovereign will is not going to include permissive will for him to curse Israel.  Whatever Balaam does God is going to override his volition so that Balaam is going to want to curse.  But what comes out of his mouth is a blessing from God.  So we see that He completely overrides our will at times if we want to go in the wrong direction.

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‎He did the same thing with Jonah.  Jonah tried to head west and God worked through circumstances to give him a water taxi ride back east.

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‎So we come down to the first prophecy.  I am just going to skip over these.  One day I am going to come through and spend a lot of time exegeting this. This is one of the most fascinating episodes in the Old Testament because of the prophecies that are included here.  God does not allow Balaam to curse Israel.   And what sets up behind all of this is Balaam is functioning like a typical religious seer, a religious diviner.  We see this juxtaposing that occurs between God who revealed Himself in the Old Testament to prophets versus false religions were picking up on divine revelation. This is indicated in f.  There is a warning to Israel.  Remember Deuteronomy is a sermon from Moses just after these events took place.

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‎NKJ “ When you come into the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.

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‎NKJ “There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer,

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‎What was Balaam doing?  He is practicing forms of demonism.

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‎NKJ “or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead.

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‎Medium, spiritist or one who call up the dead are all talking about the same kind activity.  Some one is trying to contract someone who is already dead, a necromancer.  So Deuteronomy clearly prohibits this type of activity.  This is how Balaam tries to God to have the prophecy.

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‎NKJ Then Balaam said to Balak, “Build seven altars for me here, and prepare for me here seven bulls and seven rams.”

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‎Now this doesn’t fit any of the types of offerings that are identified in .   It’s not a burnt offering like God defined a burnt offering. This is a perverted form of a burnt offering.  We know from the various documents that these diviners magicians in Mari use that this was standard operating procedure.  This is how they were manipulating the gods.  They mention the same thing of building 7 altars and having 7 sacrifices in order to impress the gods and manipulate gods to speak through them.

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‎NKJ And Balak did just as Balaam had spoken, and Balak and Balaam offered a bull and a ram on each altar.

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‎Then God speaks to Balaam.  He meets him in verse 4.

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‎NKJ Then the LORD put a word in Balaam’s mouth, and said, “Return to Balak, and thus you shall speak.”

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‎He can’t say anything else.

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‎NKJ So he returned to him, and there he was, standing by his burnt offering, he and all the princes of Moab.

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‎Notice that he never uses the word prophecy.  It is always oracle.

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‎NKJ And he took up his oracle and said: “Balak the king of Moab has brought me from Aram, From the mountains of the east. ‘Come, curse Jacob for me, And come, denounce Israel!’

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‎So he is rehearsing what has happened historically that Balak has called upon him to come and curse Jacob and denounce Israel.

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‎NKJ “How shall I curse whom God has not cursed? And how shall I denounce whom the LORD has not denounced?

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‎NKJ For from the top of the rocks I see him, And from the hills I behold him; There! A people dwelling alone, Not reckoning itself among the nations.

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‎NKJ “Who can count the dust of Jacob, Or number one-fourth of Israel? Let me die the death of the righteous, And let my end be like his!”

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‎What was God’s promise to Abraham?  That his descendents would be more numerable that the sand of the seashore and the stars in the sky.  So the first prophecy is simply a statement of how God has blessed Israel. But that is not what he intended to say. He was supposed to curse him.  So Balak gets angry with him.

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‎NKJ Then Balak said to him, “Please come with me to another place from which you may see them; you shall see only the outer part of them, and shall not see them all; curse them for me from there.”

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‎He uses the same modus operandi which is typical of pagan religions.

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‎Again God gives Balaam another message.

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‎One of the verses here is one that should be familiar to you.

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‎NKJ Then he took up his oracle and said: “Rise up, Balak, and hear! Listen to me, son of Zippor!

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‎God is speaking.

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‎NKJ “God is not a man, that He should lie, Nor a son of man, that He should repent. Has He said, and will He not do? Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

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‎How many times have you heard that?  Never knew where it came from.  It was right out of Balaam’s mouth.  That was one of the prophecies that he gave, the recalcitrant prophet.  He did not want to give this prophecy.  He goes on and he blesses the strength of Israel.

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‎NKJ “For there is no sorcery against Jacob, Nor any divination against Israel. It now must be said of Jacob And of Israel, ‘Oh, what God has done!’

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‎In other words there is such a contrast that God is going to draw in what happens in Israel whole modus operandi of everything that happens in Israel’s religion is so different from what happens in the pagan religions.  We have studied this on Thursday nights in Hebrews several times.  While there are similarities between how God revealed Himself to the prophets in the Old Testament it is not to be taken as the same thing that happens in the pagan religions. 

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‎So often you hear people come back and say, “In the Old Testament they had this sort of mystical encounter with God.”

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‎I have used this quote before and it is a great statement.   A tremendous Old Testament scholar by the name of Leon Wood is probably with the Lord now. He was a professor of Old Testament up at Grand Rapids Baptist College.  He wrote several commentaries on the Old Testament including Daniel, Judges Old Testament history of Israel.  He wrote an article addressing the issue of was the modus operandi of the prophets in the Old Testament mystical or ecstatic?

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‎In ecstatic frenzy the subject seeks to withdraw his mind from conscious participation in the world so that it may be opened to the reception of the divine word.

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‎In other words there is a methodology that they use. They get themselves in some sort of altered state of consciousness through various types of mechanics, dancing or singing. Later on in the Greek fertility religions they do it by getting drunk.  You see the same thing among the Moslems with the whirling dervishes where they work themselves up to get in to this state where the God will speak through them.

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‎He goes on to say…

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‎            To achieve this ecstatic state poisonous gas may be employed.

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‎This is what happened at oracle of Delphi.  It has been discovered that there is a hole that goes way down inside the mountain. In the ancient world they suppose that some kind of gas or noxious fumes came out of that put the oracle into some sort of hypnotic state or hallucinogenic state.

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‎a rhythmic dance or even narcotics.  The desire is to lose all rational contact with the world and so make possible a rapport with the spirit world.  Then the spirit would speak through them.

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‎God is showing in this episode that how God communicates to man is radically different from all of these human viewpoint religions and expectations.  Don’t try to interpret the revelatory actions of God in the way you see it expressed with Joseph Smith or Mohammed or any of these so called religious leaders who received revelations from deities in the past.

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‎Wood goes on to say…

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‎Already before Israel’s conquest of Palestine, Moses calls himself a prophet.  He states that a prophet like himself would arise after him.  He uses the singular in reference to this one.  So it is correctly taken to mean Christ as the Supreme Prophet thus to arise.  But the context shows that he has reference in a secondary sense also to prophets generally who should appear in later history.  Moses himself was clearly not an ecstatic.

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‎This is where he makes his point.

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‎Hence if prophets to follow him were to be like him neither would they be ecstatics.

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‎So there is a difference that occurs.  That is what God is showing and saying through Balaam in the second prophecy – that he doesn’t use the MO of sorcery and divination and all of the religious modus operandi.

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‎Then there is a third prophecy that is given in chapter 24. Again they try to manipulate God to allow Balaam to curse Israel.  But no, God is going bless Israel through Balaam.

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‎NKJ Then he took up his oracle and said: “The utterance of Balaam the son of Beor, The utterance of the man whose eyes are opened,

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‎NKJ The utterance of him who hears the words of God, Who sees the vision of the Almighty, Who falls down, with eyes wide open:

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‎Notice he hears the words of God.  This is a totally different modus operandi here than what he was used to.  He is like the witch of Endor.  Remember the witch of Endor at the end of Samuel has been going through this typical medium magical operation working with a ventriloquist ov demon in the Hebrew or engastromuthos demon in the Greek.  Typically what happened at that time there would be this disembodied voice that would come like a ventriloquist.  This was the dead person speaking.  When she casts her spell instead of a voice, Samuel appeared.  She was shocked because this isn’t how it was done.  That is what is happening with Balaam. He is so used to using typical magical divination practices to get the God’s to speak then when all of a sudden God of Yahweh is speaking through him it’s just a completely different kind of thing.  He uses different words to describe it. Therein he blesses Israel and talks about their future blessing and prosperity.

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‎NKJ ‘He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?’ “Blessed is he who blesses you, And cursed is he who curses you.”

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‎I am just skipping over the highlights here.  By this time he completely gives up the pagan method of operation. He goes up on a hill overlooking the people and God gives him a fourth prophecy. This was one of the greatest Messianic prophecies in the Old Testament.

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‎NKJ “I see Him, but not now; I behold Him, but not near; A Star shall come out of Jacob; A Scepter shall rise out of Israel, And batter the brow of Moab, And destroy all the sons of tumult.

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‎He is talking about the Messiah.

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‎NKJ “And Edom shall be a possession; Seir also, his enemies, shall be a possession, While Israel does valiantly.

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‎NKJ Out of Jacob One shall have dominion, And destroy the remains of the city.”

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‎This is one of the great messianic prophecies linking the idea of a star- and what do we see in – Jesus is the great morning star.  What do we see that announces the birth of the Savior?  It is a star in the sky.  It is not a natural star because a natural star cannot point out a house which is what that star did.  It was a representation of the Shekinah glory.  So four times Balaam has to say what God wants him to say.  It’s God’s overriding will.

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‎In conclusion, what do we see in decision making?  Let’s put all of this together and wrap it up quickly.  First of all when you have to make tough decision in life the first thing you do is commit it to prayer.  You go to the Lord in prayer that God will make clear to you all the data, all the facts, all the evidence that has to be made clear.

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‎We have promises.

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‎NKJ casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

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‎Whatever is concerning you, whatever you make a decision about put it on the Lord.

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‎NKJ Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

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‎NKJ and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

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‎Will guide you in your decision making?

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‎That is not what it says.  That is how so many Christians read it.  God will protect you.  The last part of the verse isn’t a guidance mechanism.  The issue is to commit it to the Lord in prayer, make sure you are in fellowship (that’s the second thing, confession `:9) as you go through the decision making process.

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‎Third, evaluate your motives in making the decision.  You want to make choice A.  That is what you really want to do.  Evaluate the lust patterns of you old sin nature.  You know it.  You can be honest.  Why?  What are your motives?  Evaluate your lust pattern.  You know it.  You can be honest.  Are you being motivated by power lust?  Are you being motivated by greed, materialism, money lust, sex lust?  Is there any sin that underlies your desire to do that?  If not, great move to the fourth point.

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‎The fourth point is to search the wisdom literature of the Scripture to see if that category is addressed.  Is it financial?  Does it have to do with family?  Does it have to do with education?  Does it have to do with taking care of friends or family?  You can go through the proverbs.  This is something that anybody can do.  Read the proverbs.  Each proverb deals with a different category.  Get out a spiral notebook and start labeling the categories.  Write out all the proverbs under each category.  Does it have to do with money?  Does it have to do with work?  Does it have to do with family?  Does it have to do with lust?  Does it have to do with wisdom?  You can go through and categorize all the different proverbs and then go back and use that as something to search through when you have decisions to make.

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‎Fifth, after you go through the wisdom literature search the Scripture to see if there are any biblical mandates that relate to area you are making a decision on.  Are you having to make a decision about money?  Purchase of a home?  Indebtedness?  Moving?  Family responsibilities that may be involved if you move out of an area?  List the biblical mandate which may be involved.

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‎Sixth, answer key questions related to your spiritual life. Will this enhance or detract from my spiritual life and spiritual growth.  In what ways can this decision impact my ability to serve the Lord with reference to my own spiritual gift?  We all have spiritual gifts.

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‎A lot of people say, “I don’t know what mine is.”

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‎Probably you have the gift of service which is a broad category and you can operate and serve in many different ways in the church - in music, in Sunday school, or cleaning the place. There are lots of different ways you can utilize that spiritual gift of service.  There are some decisions people make in life that they can’t ever utilize their spiritual gift.

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‎Then one day they wake up and they are 45 or 50 and they go, “I have the gift of pastor teacher.”

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‎Oops!  What am I going to do now?  Well, it’s too late because you didn’t make good decisions when you were younger.  You were more concerned about other things.  Ask this question especially when you are young and you are working through key issues that impact the rest of your life.  How can this decision affect the way I serve the Lord in my local congregation?

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‎Another question, can doing that I want to do become a distraction which interferes  with my priority to learn doctrine, grow as a believer and be involved in my local church?   It may be a hobby, something that you really enjoy doing; but you know if you pursue it you run the risk o f being a major distraction later on in life.  So you chose not to do it not because there is anything wrong with it, but because you realize there is a higher priority.

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‎Seventh, list the pros and cons in the decision.  What are the strengths and the weaknesses?  If I go for decisions A, what do I get out of it and what might it cost me?  If I go for decisions B, what do I get out of it and what might it cost me?  What is the upside?   What is the downside?  Think about what will happen if the results of the decision don’t come through.  Think about what will happen if you make this decision.

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‎Let’s say you have a job opportunity.   You say, “I am going to take this job I am going to go across the country and go to work for this company. They are promising me a tremendous salary and opportunity.  It is just what I have always wanted.  It has got to be God’s will.”

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‎What happens if three months from now the company gets sold and the position is removed?  You don’t have a job anymore.  How are you going to deal with that?  Think about what happens if you make the decision and you think by doing X you will get Y. But what happens if you never get Y? What if it turns out to be worse?

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‎What happens if you think, “I need to marry this person.”  Three months after you are married they are involved in some sort of horrible accident or they get a disease and you end up being a health care person for the next 40 years.

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‎Nobody ever thinks about that when they get married.  You stand up there and you go through the wedding vows.

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‎You say, “For better or for worse.”

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‎What people hear is “for better” “for prosperity” and “for health.” They never hear adversity, sickness, or for worse.  They never hear that part of it.  But that is what is in those vows.  Think about what happens if you make the decision and nothing you want from the decision ever comes to pass.  Is it a wise decision?

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‎Eighth, seek advice from mature experienced believers who have expertise in that field.  Is it a financial decision?  Are you purchasing a home, trying to make a decision where to go to college, or a career decision….  Look for mature believers who have expertise in that are who can give you wise advice, questions to get answered, things to think through so that you can get more facts.

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‎Finally as long as you are trusting God and have a sound biblical motive to make a wise decision to enhance to serve God to be involved in the community and the decision does not entail any kind of carnality then it is within God’s decreed moral will and go for it.  As long as you in fellowship as long as your motive is right, as long as you are not being motivated by the sin nature or lust pattern, your desire is to serve the Lord, you are not violating any mandate or prohibitions in Scripture then go for it.  But realize that even when you make the decision and do it for all the right reasons and you take into account all of the facts that in His sovereign will and overriding will you may make decision X and never get what you want because God wanted you to be in that position to take you through a test of adversity.  Just because things don’t work out the way you thought they would doesn’t mean that it wasn’t God’s will or that you made a bad decision. Sometimes a good decision puts you in a position where God wants you to test you so that you can grow and mature as a believer.

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‎With that we have covered the territory on understanding the will of God.  We will come back next time and see how this works out in the closing stages of Jacob’s life as he is leaving Padam Aram and headed back to the land of his fathers.  He gets specific divine revelation as to where he should go and what he should do.

Barnabas

Barnabas   RD/Gal/010

So what is happening here in terms of background is that Barnabas is sent up to Antioch.

   1. Barnabas was Jewish but he was a Hellenised Jew, a native of Cypress, a Levite in terms of his tribe, and he was fairly wealthy.    2. We know that he possessed a certain amount of land and he disposed of that land for the benefit of the Christian community—Acts 4:36, 37. So there we learn something about his character. He has matured in the Lord, he is generous, very kind, and grace oriented.    3. When Paul first showed up in Jerusalem after his three years in Damascus with this horrible reputation as a persecutor of the church the only person who initially would go to Paul was Baranabas. Acts 9:27.    4. When word came to Jerusalem of the establishment of the church at Antioch it was Barnabas who was sent up there to evaluate the situation, and he began to minister there.    5. Barnabas then needed help so he went to Tarsus to find Paul who would return with him and work at the church at Antioch for one year. We also learn that it was at Antioch where believers were first called Christians.

Barnabas

a. Barnabas was a Jew of the tribe of Levi who gave his possessions to be owned in common with other disciples. Acts 4:36 37, “Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means ‘one who exhorts’), and who owned a tract of land, sold it and brought the money and laid it at the apostles’ feet.” He came from a Jewish-Cypriot priestly family, but the Jerusalemite John Mark was his cousin (Col 4:10), and he himself an early member of the Jerusalem church, selling his property (in Cyprus?) for the common good (Acts 4:36ff.). Clement of Alexandria calls him one of the Seventy.

b. He had the courage to seize Paul when he first returned to Jerusalem to meet the apostles, who were still afraid of him, and take him to Peter and introduce him. Acts 9:27, “But Barnabas took hold of him [Paul] and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus.”

c. After Paul’s life had been threatened in both Damascus and Jerusalem, Paul is sent back to his home town of Tarsus. But when a lot of Gentiles begin believing in Christ around Antioch, Barnabas is sent there by the Jerusalem church to check things out. He goes a step further and gets Paul involved as well. Barnabas goes to Tarsus to find Paul, brings him to Antioch, Acts 11:25-27, and accompanies Paul to Jerusalem, Acts 11:30. Acts 11:19-30, “So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. But there were some of them, men of Cyprus and Cyrene, who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. The news about them reached the ears of the church at Jerusalem, and they sent Barnabas off to Antioch. Then when he arrived and witnessed the grace of God, he rejoiced and began to encourage them all with resolute heart to remain true to the Lord; for he was a good man [which Luke now defines by the dual description which follows], both full of the Holy Spirit and of doctrine [the two power options of the spiritual life!]. And considerable numbers were brought to the Lord. And he left for Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. And for an entire year they met with the church and taught considerable numbers; and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Now at this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. One of them named Agabus stood up and began to indicate by the Spirit that there would certainly be a great famine all over the world. And this took place in the reign of Claudius. And in the proportion that any of the disciples had means, each of them determined to send a contribution for the relief of the brethren living in Judea. And this they did, sending it in charge of Barnabas and Saul to the elders.”

d. Instead of staying at home in Jerusalem, Barnabas sees the need to push the gospel farther into the Roman Empire and returns with Paul to Antioch. Acts 12:25, “And Barnabas and Saul returned from Jerusalem when they had fulfilled their mission, taking along with them John, who was also called Mark.”

e. He is called a prophet in Acts 13:1, meaning that he had the temporary spiritual gift of prophecy. He is also called an apostle in Acts 14:14, which means he had the authority of an apostle but not the spiritual gift, which was true for a number of men prior to the completion of the Canon.

f. He is selected by God the Holy Spirit to be a part of the first missionary journey of the Church Age along with the missionary to the Gentiles, Paul, in Acts 13:2. “While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them,’” And, they were heard by a very high official of the Empire. Acts 13:7, “who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.”

g. The success of the first missionary journey is described in Acts 13:42-43,46, “As Paul and Barnabas were going out, the people kept begging that these things might be spoken to them the next Sabbath. Now when the meeting of the synagogue had broken up, many of the Jews and of the God-fearing proselytes followed Paul and Barnabas, who, speaking to them, were urging them to continue in the grace of God. ...Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, ‘It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.’”

h. Barnabas shared in the persecutions of Paul. Acts 13:50, “But the Jews incited the devout women of prominence and the leading men of the city, and instigated a persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and drove them out of their district.”

i. The fact that Paul became the leader of the two is mentioned in Acts 14:12, “And they began calling Barnabas, Zeus, and Paul, Hermes, because he was the chief speaker.”

j. Barnabas was a witness of the stoning of Paul at Lystra. Acts 14:20, “But while the disciples stood around him, he got up and entered the city. The next day he went away with Barnabas to Derbe.”

k. Barnabas was as much against the legalistic Judaizers from Jerusalem as Paul was. Acts 15:2, “And when Paul and Barnabas had great dissension and debate with them, the brethren determined that Paul and Barnabas and some others of them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders concerning this issue.” Acts 15:12, “All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.”

l. The apostles in Jerusalem wanted to and did support the new Gentile church at Antioch under the leadership of Paul and Barnabas. Acts 15:22, “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren,” and Acts 15:25-26, “it seemed good to us, having become of one mind, to select men to send to you with our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men who have risked their lives for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and Acts 15:35, “But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch, teaching and preaching with many others also, the word of the Lord.” Cf. also Gal 2:9, “and recognizing the grace that had been given to me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we might go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.”

m. Paul and Barnabas split up over the controversy about Barnabas’ cousin John Mark (cf. Col 4:10. “Aristarchus, my fellow prisoner, sends you his greetings; and also Barnabas’ cousin Mark (about whom you received instructions; if he comes to you, welcome him);”), who later was instrumental to Paul and to Peter and was the author of the gospel of Mark. Acts 15:36-39, “After some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, and see how they are.’ Barnabas wanted to take John, called Mark, along with them also....And there occurred such a sharp disagreement that they separated from one another, and Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus.”

n. By the time Paul wrote 1 Corinthians (57 AD), he had repaired his disagreement with Barnabas and mentions him in a favorable light. 1 Cor 9:6, “Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working?”

o. Barnabas got carried along with Peter into the legalistic hypocrisy of the Judaizers from the Jerusalem church who came to Antioch. Gal 2:13, “The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.”

p. On at least four occasions his spiritual insight, and the apparently universal respect for him, had momentous results.

(1) When the converted Saul arrived in Jerusalem only to discover that the Christians thought him a spy, it was Barnabas who introduced him to the ‘pillar’ apostles and convinced them of his conversion and sincerity (Acts 9:27; cf. Gal 1:18).

(2) It was Barnabas who represented the apostles at Antioch when, for the first time, Gentiles had been evangelized in significant numbers and where fellow-Cypriots had been prominent (Acts 11:19ff.). He saw the movement as a work of God—and as a fitting sphere for the forgotten Saul, whom he brought to share his labors. On their visiting Jerusalem with famine-relief, their call to Gentile missionary work was recognized (Gal 2:9). But Barnabas was not the man to withstand Peter to his face when he succumbed to Judaizing pressure.

(3) Barnabas’ third great contribution showed him committed to full acceptance of Gentiles on faith in Christ (cf. Acts 13:46). The journey with Paul (Acts 13-14), beginning in his own Cyprus, resulted in a chain of predominantly Gentile churches far into Asia Minor and a surging Jewish opposition. For the church and for Barnabas it was a milestone. Prior to this missionary journey, he had been the leader, Paul his protégé. Luke’s consistent order up to the departure from Cyprus is ‘Barnabas and Saul’. Thereafter he usually says, ‘Paul and Barnabas’. (Acts 13:43, 46, 50; 15:2, twice, 22, 35. The order in 14:14 is probably due to the order of the deities.)

(4) But Barnabas had another crucial task. Back at Antioch, the circumcision question became so acute that he and Paul were appointed to bring the matter before the Jerusalem Council. Their policy was triumphantly vindicated (Acts 15:1-29). Significantly, Barnabas stands before Paul both in the account of the proceedings (v. 12) and in the Council’s letter v. 25, contrast (22); probably the words of the original apostolic representative in Antioch carried greater weight with many in the Council. Barnabas insisted on including Mark, who had previously deserted them, on a proposed second journey. Paul refused, and the itinerary was divided, Barnabas taking Cyprus (Acts 15:36-40). Paul’s later testimonies to Mark (e.g. 2 Tim. 4:11) may mean that the latter greatly profited from working under his cousin.

q. His name was attached at an early date to an anonymous letter of Alexandrian provenance, but there is nothing else to connect it with him. The Epistle to the Hebrews has often been ascribed to him, at least from Tertullian’s time. The Gospel of Barnabas is a medieval work in Muslim interest.

Barrie

Barrier

The Composition of the Barrier

For the sake of illustration, consider the barrier to be composed of bricks

Four bricks of the Barrier were removed at the cross:

The first brick is personal Sins: When tempted by the indwelling sinful nature, our volition chooses to sin.

Romans 3:23- for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Isaiah 64:6- For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Solution: All sins of the human race were judged under the doctrines of Redemption and Unlimited Atonement.

Redemption: The substitution of money for a slave or a prisoner; hence, payment for the freedom of a slave or prisoner

Ephesians 1:7- In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace

1 Peter 1:18-19- knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.

Unlimited Atonement: All sins of the human race were judged under the doctrine of Unlimited Atonement.

Hebrews 2:9-But we do see Him who was made for a little while lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

The Second brick is the penalty of sin: Spiritual Death Total helplessness to have a relationship with God because of the genetically formed sinful nature to which Adam’s original sin is imputed at physical birth.

Romans 5:12- Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned when Adam sinned.

Solution: The substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ in which He received the imputation of our sins and their judgment. This is the doctrine of Expiation.

1 Peter 2:24- and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

Colossians 2:14- having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

The Third brick is the Curse of the Law: This curse places us in the slave market of sin where we are held under the dictatorship of our first husband, the sinful nature.

Galatians 3:10- as many as are of the works of the Law are under a curse; for it is written, [in Deuteronomy 27:26] “Cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, to perform them.”

Solution: Jesus Christ paid the ransom which purchased all humanity out of the slave market of sin and delivered them into the freedom of grace. This is the doctrine of Redemption.

Galatians 3:13- Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law, having become a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”—

The forth brick is the Integrity of God: Righteousness demands righteousness and justice demands justice. What righteousness demands justice must execute. Man is totally unrighteous. Therefore, perfect righteousness demands that justice condemn imperfect and unrighteous mankind.

Romans 3:10- as it is written, “There is none righteous, not even one;

Romans 3:12- All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, There is not even one.”

Romans 3:17- and the path of peace {propitiation} they have not known.”

Solution: That aspect of the saving work of Christ on the cross whereby the righteousness and justice of God are satisfied concerning the sins of mankind. This is the doctrine of Propitiation.

1 John 2:2- and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for those of the whole world.

Three other bricks of the Barrier are removed at the moment of salvation:

The fifth brick is physical birth: We are born with the genetic transfer of the old sin nature into every cell of out bodies. Adam’s original sin is imputed to this sinful nature. We are physically alive but spiritually dead. Born dichotomous, we have body and soul but no human spirit.

Romans 5:12- Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned—

Ephesians 2:1-And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,

Genesis 2:17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

Solution: The spiritual birth: The mechanics of the second birth include the creation of a human spirit by God the Holy Spirit at the moment of faith in Christ and imputation of eternal life to that human spirit. This is the doctrine of Regeneration;

John 3:1-18- “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

The sixth brick is man’s relative righteousness: Perfect God is perfectly righteous, no matter how good man may be, his human righteousness is completely unacceptable to God. We cannot measure up to divine righteousness because we are born in sin.

Isaiah 64:6- For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.

Solution: The Greek work log…zomai /logizomai/ means to credit something to someone’s account. The work of Christ dibits from out accounts our relative righteousness and credits to our account His perfect righteousness. This is the doctrine of Imputation and it results in our Justification before God.

1 Corinthians 1:30-But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.

2 Corinthians 5:21-He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Romans 4:3-For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Galatians 2:16-nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.

The seventh brick is man’s position in Adam: By Adam’s willful disobedience, sin and spiritual death came upon the entire human race. Our position in Adam requires justice to condemn us at physical birth as spiritually dead.

1 Corinthians 15:22a-For as in Adam all die,

Solution: The establishment of a new relationship with Christ. At salvation the Holy Spirit baptizes us into Union with Christ. This results in Top Circle assets which can never be revoked. This is the doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

1 Corinthians 15:22b so also in Christ all will be made alive.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

The first four increments of the Barrier were removed by the work of Christ on the cross for the entire human race.

The last three are removed by the lost sinner’s ratification of the Lord’s peace treaty through faith alone in Christ alone.

The end result is reconciliation: The removal of the insurmountable barrier—spiritual death, personal sins, the curse of the Law, the integrity of God, physical birth, relative righteousness, and position in Adam—that exists between God and man through the work of Christ on the cross.

2 Corinthians 5:18 - God … reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,

2 Corinthians 5:19 - namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them …

Basic Approaches to Prophecy

Basic approaches to prophecy: We need to think of three views as past, present, and future.    RD/Rev. 075b

The first view is called preterism. Preterism is simply a Latin word meaning “past.” Perterism is the view that all prophecy was fulfilled by 70 AD, that all the language in Matthew 24 and in Revelation 4-19 was simply symbolic language related to the destruction of the temple in AD 70 and Israel’s being taken out in judgment. Only a few passages in Revelation 20 & 21 that would be yet future. It is most consistent with a covenant theology and post-Millennial viewpoint.

Then there is the view known as historicism in which prophecy is being fulfilled during the church age. In historicism we go into various passages and try to find out where we are today in light of this panorama of biblical prophecy. It is the view that prophecy is being fulfilled throughout the church age. We see dispensationalists act like historicists when they try to identify when the Rapture is going to occur. Date setting is consistent with historicism but not dispensationalism, because dispensationalists believe that the Rapture could occur at any time, it is a non-sign event.

We believe in futurism, that passages like Matthew 24 and Revelation 4-19 are yet to be fulfilled.

Beast

The Beast of Revelation.  Rev. 193b

1.       He rises to power from within the fourth empire, an empire made up of ten nations, a revival of the Roman empire.

2.       He comes up after this ten-nation confederacy has come together. When he arises the ten kings are already in place.

3.       There is some unique quality about him, as indicated in Daniel 7:28. He is able to bring people together and this is what concerns Daniel.

4.       He is arrogant and challenges the Most High with great or boastful words.

5.       He persecutes the Tribulation saints. He will pursue Israel (the woman) into the wilderness.

6.       He is given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. Revelation 13:7, 8. All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast.  

7.       In Revelation 13:16-18 he forces everyone to receive his mark—showing his economic control.

8.       He gains control of the world for only three and a half years. The first three and a half years is his rise to power and then he tries to consolidate it during the second half of the Tribulation.     

Beginnings Genesis Book of

Genesis is the book of beginnings, and there are numerous beginnings in Genesis. Gen 001

1)      It is the beginning of the space-time continuum. Before Genesis 1:1 there is just God and the third heaven, there is no universe, no such thing as space or time.

2)      It is the beginning of the universe. He creates a space-time continuum, which is a special location for the universe.

3)      It is the beginning of our solar system.

4)      It is the beginning of vegetation and animal life on planet earth.

5)      It is the beginning of earth as the home for the human race, not necessarily the beginning of earth as a planet but the beginning as a home for the human race.

6)      It is the beginning of the human race.

7)      We see the beginning of the institution of marriage.

8)      We see the beginning of the institution of family.

9)      We the first sin and the beginning of sin.

10)   We see the first divine judgment on sin.

11)   We see the announcement of God’s plan of salvation.

12)   We see the beginning of law and the judicial system.

13)   We have the beginning of economics—buying and selling, and principles that should undergird all economic theory.

14)   We have the beginning of labor. Labor begins before the fall.

15)   We have the beginning of society and social structures.

16)   We have the beginning of language and learning.

17)   We have the beginning of cities and the first urban development.

18)   We have the beginning of God’s grace because man is no longer deserving and is fallen.

19)   We have the beginning of animal sacrifice as a picture of the future work of Jesus Christ on the cross.

20)   We have the beginning of music.

21)   We have the beginning of metallurgy.

22)   We have the beginning of demonism.

23)   We have the beginning of idolatry.

24)   We have the beginning of globalism and internationalism, and the first United Nations comes about in chapter eleven.

25)   We have the beginning of government and national distinctions.

26)   We have the beginning of Israel, the Jews as a distinct race.

Believeres What they will Lose

What Believers Will Lose    Rev. 054b

Some of the things the Scriptures say that believers lose if  they are a failure

1)      Failure believers fail to put doctrine first. They fail to count the cost, they fail to apply the Word, and they fail to grow spiritually. They constantly get distracted by all the things that come up in life, things that are fine and well and good, but they keep us from making doctrine our priority.

2)      Failure believers are often wonderful people. They may be very successful in this life. They may advance in terms of their temporal responsibilities but often at the expense of learning doctrine and advancing in their spiritual life.

3)      Failure believers become distracted by the details of life.

4)      Those who are failure believers will experience shame at the judgment seat of Christ, according to 1 John 2:28, and they won’t hear the Lord say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

5)      There will be a loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. They may end up entering heaven with nothing, but they will be saved. 1 Corinthians 3:15; Revelation 2:11.

6)      They will enter but will not inherit the kingdom. Galatians 5:19-21; 1 Corinthians 6:10.

7)      Their rewards will be destroyed in the lake of fire. Revelation 21:8.

Revelation 5:10, “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth.” This is just training, folks, basic boot camp to get us ready for that opportunity to rule and reign with the Lord Jesus Christ. And how well you grasp that today is your understanding of your eternal destiny.

Revelation 2:26, “To him who overcomes and does my will [keeps my works] to the end…” What is the relationship of those two phrases, overcoming and keeping my works? The ascensive KAI [kai] should be translated, “He who overcomes, even keeps my works.” So overcoming is defined as “keeping my works.” The verb for keeping is the present active participle of TEREO [thrhw] which means to keep, to guard, preserve or maintain a certain course of action. So the passage reads, “He who keeps my works.” What are those works? This is the word ERGON [e)rgon] means production. It can mean production of human good, divine good, sin; it is defined by the context. In the context here the works are maintaining spiritual growth, walking by means of the Holy Spirit, using all of the spiritual dynamics that God has given us for growing and maturing in the Christian life. “… until the end.” That word “until” is ACHRI [a)xri] which means something to a certain point, and the end point there is the word TELOS [teloj] meaning a point of time marking the end of time, the final goal, the consummation of a process. So it is the idea of he who keeps “my works” until the end of his life. That is perseverance.

Believers, Victorious

Victorious Believers  Rev. 054b

1)      The victorious believer receives rewards at the judgment seat of Christ: rewards, privileges and blessings, 1 Corinthians 3:12ff.

2)      The victorious believer is praised personally by the Lord Jesus Christ. We have this from several parables in the New Testament where the faithful servant is praised: Well done, good and faithful servant.”

3)      Victorious believers have different levels of privilege and authority in the Millennial kingdom. There will be different capacities for happiness, different grades of authority, different levels of responsibility. Cf. 2:7, 11. The victorious believer is going to be given the hidden manna which relates to a special intimacy with the Lord. He is given a white stone with his name written on it, and that is a picture of special access to God. The new name indicates a new recognition related to spiritual advance and spiritual achievement. Then we see in verse 26 that they are given authority over the nations, they will rule over the nations, and they are going to be given the morning star. There is some question as to just what that “morning star” relates to but it seems to be an overt sign that they are individuals in authority with responsibilities to rule. It is a visible indication that this person is a person who has authority over the nations and the kingdom.

4)      The victorious believer is at the wedding supper following the marriage of the Bride (the church) to the Lord Jesus Christ. So the victorious believer is invited to the wedding feast, and he is present there when the church consummates its union with the Lord Jesus Christ. This is described in Matthew 25:1-3; Revelation 19:6-8.

5)      The victorious believers participate with the Lord Jesus Christ in His final defeat of Satan. They return with Him in that mighty army that returns with the Lord Jesus Christ described in Revelation 19:9ff.

6)      Victorious believers will then rule in the Millennial kingdom with Jesus Christ as kings and priests, Revelation 20:6.

Bible Study

The four key elements in the development of any kind of Bible study.

1.          Observation. We have to ask, what does the text say?

2.          Interpretation. This answers the question, what does it mean? In other words, what did the original author intend to communicate to the original audience?

3.          How does that fit with other parts of Scripture? This is called correlation where we compare Scripture with Scripture.

4.          Application. What does it mean to me?

Blood of Christ

The Blood of Christ imagery goes back to the Old Testament. RD/Rev. 110b

1)      The phrase “blood of Christ” or “His blood” or “the blood of the Lamb” is a common biblical phrase describing the death of Christ. Five times it is used in the book of Revelation, ten times in the book of Hebrews.

2)      Unfortunately this is often a misunderstood phrase and people who ought to know better take it as a literal description. We must understand that under the principles of literal interpretation, which means that we understand the Bible in terms of the plain, normal use of language, we clearly recognize the use of figures of speech. This includes metaphors and similes, personification, hyperbole, and other figures of speech. There are clearly understood idioms in the Bible and that is why we have to interpret the Bible by the time in which it was written.

3)      Following the basic rules of word study we see that throughout the Old Testament the phrase “shedding of blood” takes its meaning from the original murder of Abel by Cain. He sheds his blood. In that case there was a literal shedding of blood because he used a sacrificial knife in order to kill his brother Abel. But there is an extension of this to all kinds of wrongful death. Genesis 9:4 sows an extension of this where blood is related to life: NASB “Only you shall not eat flesh with its life, {that is,} its blood.” Blood therefore stand for life. The shedding of blood is an idiom, then, that means the loss of life. Genesis 9:6 NASB “Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.” This is the foundational verse for capital punishment, and it has never been rescinded. It is part of the Naohic covenant which not only promised that God would not destroy the earth by water but that whoever shed man’s blood, by man would his blood be shed. The shedding of blood is talking about violent murder, not that it has to literally be bloodshed.

4)      This is clearly recognized in the standard, scholarly Greek lexicons. The blood of Christ stands for the life of Christ that He gave for our atonement. This is a term picturing the violent loss of life, but the loss of physical life stands for His spiritual substitutionary death.

5)      The substitutionary death if Christ was to pay the penalty for sin. The penalty was not physical death, it was spiritual death. The was the penalty that was enacted in the garden of Eden. Adam was separated from God; Adam and Eve could not have a relationship with God, they ran and hid and that indicated that something had happened in their relationship; they were spiritually dead. Physical death was not the penalty for sin for they did not die for another 900 years. Physical death was the consequence of spiritual death, not the penalty.

6)      Since it was not His physical death or physical bleeding that was efficacious for salvation, but His spiritual death, then the physical blood does not save.

7)      We have to remember that the imagery here derives from the Old Testament sacrifices. In the Old Testament sacrifices the animal’s throat was cut on the altar and there was a literal bleeding, but as we are told in Hebrews 9:22, “according to the Law, {one may} almost {say,} all things are cleansed with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.” But we are also told that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin. It wasn’t the physical bleeding of the animals that solved their sin problem, it was simply a picture of what would happen in the future related to the death of the Messiah on the cross.

8)      The physical death of the Messiah signified the completion of His spiritual, substitutionary work, and it was necessary for His resurrection and to indicate the Father’s acceptance of His sacrifice, that He had conquered sin and death. For Jesus Christ to be resurrected demonstrated that His spiritual substitutionary death on the cross gave us victory over physical death, and His resurrection was the first or the down payment, called the firstfruits in Scripture of all other resurrections. So on the basis of His physical, bodily resurrection we have confidence that we, too, will have a future physical, bodily resurrection when the Lord comes at the Rapture.

Burnt Offering

Just to give you some summary information on the Burnt Offering RD/Heb 127c 

   1. First of all, the location of the brazen altar speaks of the need of sacrificial atonement prior to entering into God’s presence – prior to worship, prior to serving God.  God multitasks.  There are those I have read who have tried to make a strict case that the brazen altar and the burnt offerings specifically speak of phase one salvation.  It speaks of sanctification in all of its aspects - positional as well as experiential because after you would bring your first burnt offering after you were saved, bringing a burnt offering after that is a repetitive thing.  You don’t get saved again and again and again.  So it is a picture of the fact that Jesus Christ provides complete sanctification for us.  So it relates to both aspects.  So before you can serve God, before you can worship God, before you can have any kind of fellowship with God there must be a sacrifice.

Now let me add another point here.  There’s a difference between the experiential realities in the life of the average Jewish believer who lives maybe a two-day walk away from Jerusalem and the observance of certain rituals in the Tabernacle.  If you live up in the north in what’s later Galilee, live up around Nazareth or up around the Sea of Galilee and you commit a sin - does that mean that “Well, I just committed a sin. I had better hoof it down to Jerusalem (That would take about two days.) so that I can make a sacrifice and then turn around and get back up so I can back to work.  I get half way back and I commit another sin.  Well, I have to turn around and run all the way back to Jerusalem.”  Nobody would ever get anywhere.  We talk about yo-yo confession with Christians going in and out of fellowship.  You’d be running in and out of Jerusalem all the time and never get anything done.  So these offerings have to do with ritual (with ritual cleansing) as well as the expression of the reality of forgiveness once that has taken place.  So you have the ritual cleansing aspect and you have the real aspect which is when you have an individual believer up in Galilee…he sins and can confess his sin just as David does in Psalm 51 and he is forgiven and his fellowship with God is restored. Then the next time he goes down to Jerusalem, he needs to take a trespass offering or a guilt offering (sin offering) into the Tabernacle in order to have that ceremonial cleansing and recognition of forgiveness and the reality of forgiveness at that particular point.  So it reinforces this.  Everything we see in the ceremonial law is designed to emphasize two things - number 1 that just about anything you or I do can render us ceremonially unclean and incapable of coming into God’s presence.  That of course teaches the sinfulness of sin and how sin permeates everything in our lives.  The second thing it teaches is that man cannot come to God on his own.  There must be a blood sacrifice.

   2. The second point I mentioned last time is that the basic offering is the burnt offering.   This is called the olah offering – olah from the verb meaning alah to go up or ascend.  It’s also called the holocaust offering because the Greek word that is used to transliterate this into the Septuagint is holkatoma which is the Greek word from which we get our English word holocaust.  It has to do with the fact that everything was consumed in the offering.

Then the other word that’s important to see in the process is this word qarab.   It’s translated here as coming near.  We find that down in verse 2.

NKJ Leviticus 1:2 "Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: 'When any one of you brings an offering to the LORD, you shall bring your offering of the livestock -- of the herd and of the flock.

…the idea of coming near to the Lord.   Approaching Him emphasizes the idea of presenting it … emphasizes the aspect of fellowship.  The noun cognate for this is the word qorban which is spelled q-o-r-b-a-n.  This is the word that’s used in verse 2.

It uses the word the word qorban there.

NKJ Leviticus 1:3 ' If his offering is a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish; he shall offer it of his own free will at the door of the tabernacle of meeting before the LORD.

Then it goes on to describe the first burnt offering.  So the emphasis here with the word qorban is an offering.  Then the use of the verb qarab emphasizes fellowship.

Fellowship as we have studied has two aspects.  It’s positional fellowship which every believer has at the instant of faith alone in Christ alone. It is a legal concept.  We are adopted into God’s family.  It is a permanent eternal fellowship that can never be broken.  However in terms of our day-to-day experience, it can be broken and it can be violated when we sin.  This is why David says in the Psalms:

NKJ Psalm 66:18 If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear.

That day-to-day sin can separate us from God as we shift from walking by means of the Spirit to walking by means of the flesh.  Instead of walking in the light, we’re walking in darkness.   The only way that we can recover is through confession of sin.  So you have two kinds of fellowship portrayed here – positional and experiential both of which are portrayed typologically in the offering.  The type, the picture…the word “type” means a shadow or a picture or example.  The type gives us a picture of what is going on.  The burnt offering is designed to picture Christ’s full atonement on the cross which is final and complete in terms of its payment for sin.  It also supplies the ongoing need for experiential cleansing of sin after salvation.  This is why I John 1:7 precedes I John 1:9.

Now you are saying, “Well, what does I John 1:7 say?”  I John 1:7 says:

NKJ 1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.

It’s a present tense there and has that continuous idea that the blood of Christ continually cleanses from all sin.

Now there have been folks who come along and read that and said, “See, we really don’t need to confess our sins because right here we have a clear statement that the blood of Christ continually cleanses us from sin.  So why do we need to confess?”

I kind of sat back and scratched my head a little bit and said, “Well, let me see here.  If 1 John 1:7 means you don’t ever have to confess your sin, then why just two sentences later does John say:

NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

It’s because 1 John 1:7 tells us the positional reality and the basis for the action that occurs in I John 1:9 so that the reality is that the blood of Christ is the basis for our eternal positional cleansing.  But the way that is activated in our day-to-day life is that whenever we sin we know that if we confess it, admit it, acknowledge it to God; then instantly we are forgiven and cleansed from all unrighteousness on the basis of that death of Christ on the cross.

The second thing that I ought to bring up in talking about I John 1:7 is understanding that phrase “the blood of Christ.”   What does that mean?  Does that mean the physical blood?  Does that mean the literal, physical components that make up the blood (The red blood cells and white blood cells and the plasma and everything else that’s involved there.) or is this a figure of speech?

One of the things I mentioned before on Mondays - usually the last Monday of every month.  This month is was last Monday.  I meet with a group of pastor’s and teach an extended form of Bible study methods.  We’ve been reading a book by one of the professors I had at Dallas Seminary named Roy Zuck called Basic Bible Interpretation which is a very good book just introducing the basic principles – Bible study methods specifically related to hermeneutics.  The chapter we were studying on Monday had to do with figures of speech.  There is a book that he references that I just about tore apart when I was in seminary we used it so much called Figures of Speech in the Bible by EW Bullinger.  The first 25 pages of the book are the Table of Contents listing over 200 figures of speech listed in the Bible.  I mean that‘s the Table of Contents.  That’s not the description of all of them.  That’s the remainder of the book.  So there are all kinds of figures of speech in the Bible.  Bullinger’s work is considered the definitive work on figures of speech used in the Bible. Bullinger states that the term when blood is used in these kinds of contexts is what’s called a metonymy.

Now you never heard of that.  You never heard of most of those – trust me. I was an English major in college.  I never heard of 90% of these figures of speech.  They pretty much limited our education to similes and metaphors.  Every now and then they might throw in something like hyperbole, one or two others personification, but that was it.  Well, a metonymy is when you put one word for something else that it is related to.  Sometimes you have a metonymy of the cause for effect or the thing for the object of different ones like that.  That’s what you have here.

When somebody dies a violent death in many cases there is the shedding of blood.   So go back to principles in the Mosaic Law and Leviticus where you have statements that the life is in the blood.  That is a picture of the fact that when blood is no longer circulating, there’s death.  When somebody bleeds out that means their life is gone.  They’re now dead.  They have exanguinated.  There is no longer any blood there so they are dead.  But, not all violent deaths are caused by bleeding.  You can stab someone or you can shoot them.  You can find any number of ways to cause them to bleed, but there are many ways in which you can murder somebody through poison or strangulating or other ways in which there is little or no bloodshed, but you’ve still committed murder.  You can go back into the Old Testament as far back as Genesis 9 when God authorizes capital punishment and He states it this way:

NKJ Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.

The principle there is the shedding of blood in that context – he uses a figure of speech which indicates a violent kind of death and a wrong kind of death, the committing of a homicide.

So when we have this phrase “the blood of Christ”, the blood stands for death.  So when the animal’s blood is shed on the altar that is a figurative way using a metonymy of talking about the death of the animal - the physical death of the animal.  But, the physical death of a sacrificial animal in the Old Testament isn’t just depicting the physical death of Christ on the cross.  It is picturing the spiritual death of Christ on the cross when God pours out His judgment upon Jesus Christ.

You can look this up in any number of Greek lexicons under the word “blood”, and it will point out that the word is used figuratively of the sacrificial work of Christ on the cross when He pays the penalty sins of the world.  So, that’s what is happening here.   All of this is designed to picture these different aspects of Christ’s work.  So when we get into I John 1:7 and we learn that the blood of Christ or the death of Christ (that’s His spiritual death) continually cleanses from all sin.  If you were Jewish, you would have a certain picture in your mind related to all these sacrifices that you had seen.  Then, you would have another understanding if we confess our sin that would picture the sin offering.  That’s the fourth offering that we’ll study.  When you put your hand upon the animal and there’s a transference of your sin and guilt from you to that particular animal, that is what happens at the cross.  Then you would confess your sin in relation to forgiveness.  We’ll get into that as we proceed in our study.

So the burnt offering pictures both the positional cleansing that occurs once for all when we trust Christ as our Savior and the ongoing experiential cleansing that takes place as we confess our sins.  So the ultimate way to define this is that the burnt offering pictures the sanctifying work of Christ on the cross which sets us apart so we can now have fellowship and have communion with God.  So as the person would bring the offering, he would come up and he would lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering that it may be acceptable for him to make atonement on his behalf.  

   3. Now the third point I have is that as they brought the burnt offering.  He would come in and present the offering after they have gone through everything.  We will go into some of the details in a minute.  The entire offering is consumed by fire.  What that indicates is that there is nothing left for the worshipper to do.  Everything belongs to God.  God is the one who completely consumes the offering and there is nothing leftover for the worshipper to do.  Everything is done indicating that Jesus Christ in the judgment that the heat (the fire) depicts the judgment. In the judgment on Christ everything was paid for.

   4. The fourth thing we should note about the burnt offering is that this is the regular offering that is made every morning and every evening in the Temple.  There is a burnt offering at dawn, a burnt offering at dusk continuously depicting the need for cleansing    5. The main doctrine here (the main teaching we want to get across) is that no one can ever draw near to God (no one can have a relationship with God) apart from a substitutionary payment.  There must be a substitutionary payment (a certain kind of death) as depicted in the violent death of the animal.  This was a horrific, shocking thing to come into the Temple and to bring your lamb or the young bull and to kill it and to watch, collect all the blood, slit its neck, slit its throat, collect all the blood in the basin and hear all the sounds  of the animal dying and collect all that.  Then you would skin the animal and then divide up the parts, quarter it, lay it out in the correct order on the burnt offering and then it would all be consumed.  We’ll get into some of the details in a minute.  So it’s a very graphic picture that someone would have to go through again and again and again depicting that eventual work of Christ on the cross    6. The burnt offering found its ultimate typological fulfillment in the cross.  It pictures everything that is accomplished on the cross.  So that picks up all the elements related to positional as well as experiential.

So all this pictures the work of Christ on the cross.

So in summary what we have is (the first point)  that the whole sacrifice pictures fellowship with God.  So it is a foundational sacrifice even though it’s not always the first sacrifice.  It is a foundational sacrifice because it depicts substitutionary atonement. 

 The second thing that we see is that these burnt offerings are the most common so this is going to be reinforced in the minds of the people twice a day, every day on and on and on.  It’s the most common sacrifice mentioned in the Scripture. 

The Third thing. The burnt offerings are only to be offered in a place where God authorized.  According to Deuteronomy 12:13:

NKJ Deuteronomy 12:13 "Take heed to yourself that you do not offer your burnt offerings in every place that you see;

Solomon is going to violate that and allow burnt offerings in the high places from the beginning of his reign even though he is not worshipping idols.  There is a violation of this law from the very beginning of his reign.

NKJ Deuteronomy 12:14 "but in the place which the LORD chooses, in one of your tribes, there you shall offer your burnt offerings, and there you shall do all that I command you.

…only is a stated location.  This is called the law of the central sanctuary.

The fourth thing that we notice is that anyone can bring an offering.  They’re not going to be restricted by their economic status, by how they much have, by how much they don’t have. Anyone can bring an offering and if you don’t have anything you can at least afford to bring a turtle dove or a pigeon.

The fifth point is that the complete burning of the sacrifice represents the totality of the judgment and purification.  This pictures the fact that in Jesus Christ’s death on the cross every sin is paid for.  The picture of the burning also pictures the fact that it is the substitute that bears all of the penalty, all of the judgment - not the worshipper.

The sixth point, though the blood of bulls cannot take away sin as we learned in Hebrews, God did actually forgive their sins. I often use the words “it’s provisional”.  By provisional I don’t mean it’s any less real; it’s just because the ultimate sacrifice hasn’t been accomplished yet.  It’s based on something that is going to happen in the future.  So it’s provisional.  I don’t mean that in the sense that God is holding out and waiting and if for some reason Christ didn’t die because there was a certainty that Christ would die.  So it is a real forgiveness.  We see this in passages such as Psalm 130:3-4.

NKJ Psalm 130:3 If You, LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?

NKJ Psalm 130:4 But there is forgiveness with You, That You may be feared.

It was a real and total and complete forgiveness.

NKJ Psalm 78:38 But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, And did not destroy them. Yes, many a time He turned His anger away, And did not stir up all His wrath;

So this is the idea that there is a full and complete and total judgment.

Then the 7th point is that in terms of studying the Old Testament, burnt offerings were in practice from the very beginning.  The first mention of a burnt offering is in Genesis 8:20 at the time of the flood.  Then there is a second burnt offering in Genesis.  That is when God asked Abraham to come and offer Isaac as a burnt offering in Genesis 22.

In the book of Judges, it’s mentioned several times.  Gideon offers a burnt offering when the Angel of the Lord appears to him.  Jephthah wrongly vows to offer whatever comes out of the door of the house to greet him when he comes home as a burnt offering and ends up having to sacrifice his daughter.   Then Manoah, the father of Sampson, offers a burnt offering in gratitude to the Angel of the Lord.

So there seems to be a couple of different motivations in bringing a burnt offering.  One is in relationship to understanding the provision of grace to cover sin.  The other is in gratitude to God for His provision.  Burnt offerings are mentioned (or the word is mentioned) over 280 times in the Old Testament so this is your most common offering.

Called, Why We are

‎ 

‎Why We are Called  RD/Gal/008

‎ 

‎There are six purposes to the divine call: 

‎a) We are called into fellowship with God, . We are to have personal rapport with Him. That is what we need to be thinking about every day;

‎b) He calls us for freedom;

‎c) Eternal life. Eternal life is not simply eternal existence; it is a quality, a significance to life, a depth of life. It comes only from learning doctrine. We learn it so that we can develop capacity for life. Jesus said He came to give us life, and to give it abundantly. That doesn’t just happen by being saved; that is only the starting point, ;

‎d) Spiritual growth. God saved us to grow spiritually, —calling is to walk worthy, that is our spiritual life;

‎e) To suffer, ;

‎f) We are called to glorify God in the angelic conflict, .

‎ 

Campaign of Armageddon

Campaign of Armageddon                  RD/Rev. 189

It is a lengthy military campaign that has eight specific stages.

The first stage takes place with the gathering of the armies of the Antichrist at the valley of Armageddon or the valley of Megiddo. The Antichrist’s capital is in literal Babylon—that will be rebuilt. There is an assault on Babylon that is finally and completely destroyed. So he sees the smoke on the horizon, knows his time is up, so he attacks Jerusalem from the north down through what is now the west bank and he will pretty much wipe out and devastate Jerusalem. The Jews have escaped down to Petra or Bozrah and so he is going to send his armies after them. This is when Israel will turn and call upon the Lord to deliver them as a nation. So this is talking about corporate Israel’s rebirth as a nation. They are already justified, already individually regenerated; this is talking about the nation as a whole. This is when the curse from Matthew 12 is lifted. Then the Lord is going to return at the second coming, He returns to Bozrah to deliver them there and then will lead them up from Bozrah with the tribe of Judah in front, up through the southern Judean desert back to Jerusalem and the valley of Jehoshaphat where the battle will end. That will be where several judgments at the end of the Tribulation will take place and then there will be His victory ascent up the Mount of Olives.

Megiddo is almost exactly on the same latitude as Babylon. The Antichrist whose headquarters is in Babylon is going to send his armies there and it is on the plain of Esdraelon, also known as the valley of Megiddo, that his forces will gather as a staging area. Haifa is the only natural harbor in Israel, so it makes sense that as military personnel and supplies are shifted into Israel they will be taken in through the harbor at Haifa and that just feeds into the north-west end of the valley of Esdraelon. This is where the army collects to attack Jerusalem and to destroy the last remnants of the Jews.

The valley of Esdraelon is a very long valley and down its middle runs the Kishon river, the same river that Elijah draws water from to soak the altar. The ridge line on the upper north-west corner is the ridge of Mount Carmel. The Kishon is also the river that apparently flash-floods during the battle of Deborah and Barak against the Canaanites in Judges chapters 5 & 6, and God uses that flood to wipe out the Canaanite chariots. The valley is a huge area and from Haifa across almost to the Jordan river. It is the staging area where all of the supplies are going to be brought in for the assault on the Jews.

The next thing (second stage) that happens is while the Antichrist is gearing up for battle he hears a rumor from the east that Babylon is being destroyed. He looks toward the horizon and sees the smoke ascending, and Babylon is finally and ultimately destroyed. Historically among dispensationalists we grew up hearing that Babylon in Revelation wasn’t really talking about literal Babylon, it was talking about Rome; it was a code word. We call that non-literal interpretation. In the 1980s a lot of dispensationalists began to study this and realized that the Old Testament prophecies about the complete and final destruction of Babylon had never truly been fulfilled. Those prophecies indicated that Babylon would be completely uninhabitable. But there have always been Arabs and a few small villages on the site of ancient Babylon all through the centuries, it has never been uninhabited. So that prophecy has never been fulfilled. Babylon will be rebuilt and will be the economic heartbeat for the future kingdom of the Antichrist.

Revelation 18:1 NASB “After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory. [2] And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, ‘Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.” The stock markets everywhere will crash and there will be no recovery. Isaiah 13:9 prophesied it this way: NASB “And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the glory of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” Nothing can be found of Sodom and Gomorrah; nothing has lived there, it is a barren wasteland. That is not true of the modern site of ancient Babylon. [20] “It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch {his} tent there, Nor will shepherds make {their flocks} lie down there.” But Arabs have been there up to the present and shepherds have rested their flocks there. So this hasn’t been fulfilled.

Jeremiah 50:1 NASB “The word which the LORD spoke concerning Babylon, the land of the Chaldeans, through Jeremiah the prophet: …. [39] When they become heated up, I will serve {them} their banquet And make them drunk, that they may become jubilant And may sleep a perpetual sleep And not wake up, declares the LORD. [40] I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, Like rams together with male goats. [41] How Sheshak has been captured, And the praise of the whole earth been seized! How Babylon has become an object of horror among the nations! [42] The sea has come up over Babylon; She has been engulfed with its tumultuous waves. [43] Her cities have become an object of horror, A parched land and a desert, A land in which no man lives And through which no son of man passes.”

Jeremiah 51:24 NASB “But I will repay Babylon and all the inhabitants of Chaldea for all their evil that they have done in Zion before your eyes, declares the LORD.” Iraq is going to be wiped out at that point at the end of the Tribulation.

The third stage in the campaign of Armageddon  is the fall of Jerusalem. The Antichrist will invade from the north coming down from the valley of Megiddo to attack and destroy Jerusalem. The city will be pretty much wiped out and laid waste by the assault of the Antichrist. Zechariah 12:2 NASB “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah.” So it is an attack on this area. [3] “It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it. [4] In that day,” declares the LORD, ‘I will strike every horse with bewilderment and his rider with madness. But I will watch over the house of Judah, while I strike every horse of the peoples with blindness’.”

Zechariah 14:2 NASB “For I will gather all the nations against Jerusalem to battle, and the city will be captured, the houses plundered, the women ravished and half of the city exiled, but the rest of the people will not be cut off from the city.”

In the fourth stage the Antichrist will march to Petra. He is pursuing the Jews down through the southern part of Israel and across south of the Dead Sea into that barren wasteland. Jeremiah 49:13, 14 NASB “For I have sworn by Myself, declares the LORD, that Bozrah will become an object of horror, a reproach, a ruin and a curse; and all its cities will become perpetual ruins. I have heard a message from the LORD, And an envoy is sent among the nations, {saying,} ‘Gather yourselves together and come against her, And rise up for battle!’” This is the nations gathering against Bozrah.

The fifth stage: Israel at that time, surrounded and about to be defeated, will cry out to God for help. This is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 23:39 NASB “For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!’” Just before this He had entered into Jerusalem riding on the foal of a donkey as the King and was welcomed. But then the rejection and the conspiring against Him t have Him killed and so He says He will not come again until they as a nation welcome Him. There were many in the nation during the time of Jesus’ ministry who accepted Him and were saved but the nation as a whole rejected Him. So the nation was going to be punished by God because as a nation they rejected Him. Even the believers went through the divine discipline. Romans 11:26 NASB “and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, ‘THE DELIVERER WILL COME FROM ZION, HE WILL REMOVE UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB. [27] THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS’.” This isn’t talking about taking away their sins at the cross, that had already happened; this is talking about the removal of that judgment that they had been under ever since they had rejected Jesus as the Messiah.

Zechariah 12:10 NASB “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” This isn’t a salvation verse. It doesn’t say they will look on Him whom they have pierced and will believe on Him, this is a verse that occurs corporately when they realize as a nation what they did back in 33 AD.

Zechariah 13:1 NASB “In that day a fountain will be opened for the house of David and for the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for impurity.” There will be a cleansing of the nation from their sin.

Joel 2:28, 29 NASB “It will come about after this That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; And your sons and daughters will prophesy, Your old men will dream dreams, Your young men will see visions. Even on the male and female servants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.” That is the new covenant terminology when at this point when Jesus returns He establishes and implements the new covenant with the nation Israel and pours out His Spirit upon them. [30] “I will display wonders in the sky and on the earth, Blood, fire and columns of smoke. [31] The sun will be turned into darkness And the moon into blood Before the great and awesome day of the LORD comes. [32] And it will come about that whoever calls on the name of the LORD Will be delivered; For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem There will be those who escape, As the LORD has said, Even among the survivors whom the LORD calls.” The Hebrew word for “saved” there isn’t the usual word, it is a different Hebrew word that has to do with a physical deliverance from a physical calamity. This same verse is quoted on Romans 10:12 and it happens at the end of the Tribulation period.

The sixth event is the second coming of Christ. He returns to physically deliver them at Petra. Isaiah 63:1-3 NASB “Who is this who comes from Edom, With garments of glowing colors from Bozrah, This One who is majestic in His apparel, Marching in the greatness of His strength? ‘It is I who speak in righteousness, mighty to save.’  Why is Your apparel red, And Your garments like the one who treads in the wine press? ‘I have trodden the wine trough alone, And from the peoples there was no man with Me. I also trod them in My anger And trampled them in My wrath; And their lifeblood is sprinkled on My garments, And I stained all My raiment’.” This is Jesus coming, leading the remnant of Israel that He has rescued in Bozrah and bringing them up to Jerusalem. 

The seventh event is the armies of the Antichrist will be destroyed. Joel 3;2 NASB “I will gather all the nations And bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there On behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; And they have divided up My land….  [12] Let the nations be aroused And come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat, For there I will sit to judge All the surrounding nations.” This is also the Kidron valley and where this judgment on the nations will take place.

Zechariah 14:3, 4 NASB “Then the LORD will go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fights on a day of battle. In that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which is in front of Jerusalem on the east; and the Mount of Olives will be split in its middle from east to west by a very large valley, so that half of the mountain will move toward the north and the other half toward the south. You will flee by the valley of My mountains, for the valley of the mountains will reach to Azel; yes, you will flee just as you fled before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah. Then the LORD, my God, will come, {and} all the holy ones with Him!” So the Jews who are being pressured by the armies of the Antichrist from the north are going to escape through this valley that Jesus Christ will create when He splits the Mount of Olives in two. They will head toward the Dead Sea for their release.

The eighth stage of the campaign of Armageddon is the victory ascent of the Lord Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives. This is where He will finalize His victory, as seen in passages such as Joel 3:14-17; Revelation 19:11-13 NASB “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it {is} called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes {are} a flame of fire, and on His head {are} many diadems; and He has a name written {on Him} which no one knows except Himself. {He is} clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God.” That is how it ends at the second coming.

Capacity for Life

DOCTRINE OF CAPACITY FOR LIFE

A. Capacity for life is related to the circumstances of life. Phil 4:11-12. "Not that I speak with reference to need, for I have come to learn that in whatever circumstances I am to be content [capacity for life]. I know both how to live in humility and I know how to live in prosperity, in all places and in all circumstances I have been taught the secret both how to be well fed and to be hungry, both how to prosper and to be in poverty."

B. Capacity is related to status quo in life or lifestyle. Heb 13:5-6, "Let your lifestyle be free from the love of money; keep on being content with what you possess, for He Himself has said, `I will not abandon you, neither will I ever forsake you,' so that being confident we say, `The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid of what man can do to me.'"

C. Capacity is related to the supergrace life. 2 Cor 9:8, "And God has the ability to cause all grace to superabound toward you, in order that always having a capacity for life in all things you may superabound with reference to the production of divine good."

D. Capacity is related to prosperity and blessing. 1 Tim 6:6, "But godliness associated with capacity for life keeps on being a great means of prosperity."

Carl Henry

Carl F H Henry    RD/Kings/031b

God’s agape is comprehended in voluntary relationships that stem from his creative and compassionate personality. [assumes the meaning of compassion] As represented in the Bible God’s love presupposes the exclusive voluntary initiative of the sovereign divine being whom no external power can manipulate.[Impassibality] Schleiermacher’s effort to explain theological representations of divine grace as merely the symbolic language of preaching and poetry (Der christliche Glaube, § 85) distorts what the Bible insistently affirms, namely, that God freely engages in compassionate and merciful acts.

A. H. Strong observes that while God’s holiness is invariable, his mercy is optional (Systematic Theology, p. 272). Compassionate response is not induced in God by the distress of creatures, as if they were able to effect a change in the nature of an otherwise uncompassionate being; rather, response is grounded in the living God’s essential nature, that is, in his voluntary disposition

Whatever Christian theology means by the impassibility of God, it does not mean that God’s love, compassion and mercy are mere figures of speech. But neither is God’s love simply a disposition evoked in God during the history of man and that belongs only to the economy of salvation. God is love in the sovereign freedom and power of his eternal being, and as such has revealed himself definitively and decisively in Scripture and in Christ..

Categories of Adversity

Categories of Adversity   James 004

There are several categories of adversity that are common to man.

1)      Social adversity. This is when you lose your social life, you lose friends, it may involve a broken romance, marital problems, personality conflicts with somebody, injustice from some person.

2)      Historical disaster. This includes economic disaster from a recession or depression, warfare, having a nation defeated in war, diplomatic defeat, loss of establishment principles, loss of freedom, the violence of a revolution, becoming the victim of terrorism or persecution. This is all part of historical disaster.

3)    Criminal disaster, being the victim of some crime: robbery, rape, embezzlement, blackmail, child abuse, incest, or various other crimes.

4)      Vilification, where you are the victim of people running you down, spreading lies about you, gossiping, maligning, slandering, unjust loss of reputation.

5)      Rejection. Many people go through rejection, and many people think they go through rejection when they don’t but they react the same way; social isolation, business isolation, losing a job, being laid off, unfair treatment, being a victim of prejudice, being rejected by someone you love and care about.

6)      Weather disasters: blizzards, ice storms, hurricanes, tornados, flood.

7)      Loss of health: disease, pain, terminal illnesses, starvation, handicap, blindness, being paralysed.

8)      The loss of a loved one.

These are just some of the adversities that are common to man, and we never know when one of these things are going to come in to our lives and give us the opportunity to apply doctrine and accelerate our growth and spiritual maturity, or to reject doctrine and cave in to the pressure of the sin nature and to respond through various sins.

Categories of Angels

Categories of Angels: Rev. 5:9; Isa. 13-14  RD/Rev. 116b

Census at the time of Birth of Christ

The five problems that have been identified since at least the middle of the nineteenth century. Matthew 005b

1.          Nothing is known of a general empire-wide census in the time of Augustus.

2.          They claim that no Roman census would require Joseph to go to Bethlehem.

3.          They claim that there would be no census in the area of Palestine at the time of Herod the Great because it was semi-autonomous.

4.          They claim that Josephus, the Jewish historian from later in the first century, writes of a census in AD 6. AD 6 is approximately 9 or 10 years after the birth of Jesus and 8 or 9 years after the death of Herod, and so obviously anybody who was trying to write history would understand that the census taken at that time, when Quirinius was governor, would not be the census that Luke identifies. So Luke would be speaking of a different census. And Luke knew because about the time of the AD 6 census there was a Jewish revolt in Galilee against the census, and nothing like that happened at the time of the birth of Christ. Luke actually refers to this revolt that took place in Galilee and was therefore aware of that.

5.          They claim that Quirinius could not have been the governor of the census at the time of Jesus’ birth since the governors’ records of this period are well known and Quirinius is not mentioned.

Characteristics of God's Love

What are the characteristics that we see of God’s love at the cross?  RD/John 076

1)      It is initiative. This means it is not based on how other people respond to you, but is based upon your character. It is not based on somebody else’s acceptance or rejection, it is based exclusively on the character of God. God in eternity past initiated the plan of salvation in initiating grace. It is not based on anything positive in the object of love. 

2)      It is aggressive. That means it takes the first step. It asserts itself with confidence and boldness. It is aggressive because it has an absolute standard as its frame of reference, and that is the character of God.

3)      It is characterised by humility. True humility does not emphasise its own personal glory. This is highlighted in 1 Corinthians 13, “Love does not seek its own.”

4)      This love is intense. It is not weak, it includes a zealous determination to accomplish the goal no matter what the obstacles.

5)      It is steadfastly loyal. This comes from the Hebrew word that is used for God’s love in the Old Testament, chesed. It emphasises the fact that it never gives up, it never releases it hold. God is always loyal to His promises to man and strongly desires for all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

6)      Concentration. Just as Jesus Christ set Himself apart to the task of accomplishing our salvation so we set ourselves apart, and have been set apart to God in positional sanctification, and are being set apart unto God, understanding that he has a plan and a purpose and a destiny for us and we need to renovate and align our thinking to be consistent with this plan and purpose for our lives.

7)      Dedication. Dedication has to do with the goal and purpose. Jesus Christ committed Himself from eternity past to the task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification. In the same way we are to dedicate ourselves to this love for one another, this is not just going to happen. God produces it in us as we grow spiritually, so that means the precursor to loving one another is having enough doctrine in our souls to develop a capacity for love. This is an emphasis on our commitment to learn the Word of God so that we can develop the capacity to love one another.

8)      Devoted. He devotes Himself continuously to the believer. He prays for us continuously. This is something ongoing. 

John 13:36 NASB “Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, where are You going?’ Jesus answered, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me now; but you will follow later. [37] Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You.’ [38] Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times’.”

Christ, The Ascension of

Five significant things about the ascension of Christ

RD/1 Cor. 073

1)      It ended the period of the limitation of His divine attributes and the use of His deity, and brought to an end His life as a man on the earth.

2)      The ascension is the occasion for His exaltation and glorification.

3)      It is important because it marked the entrance of resurrected humanity into heaven. it is a Man who is elevated above all powers and authorities in the universe.

4)      It began His present work in heaven, His intercessory work for believers as our advocate.

5)      It set the stage for the entrance of the Holy Spirit into history through the church, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in every believer, the filling of the Holy Spirit, and the giving of spiritual gifts which then become the basis for our training and service and is the basis for our preparation to rule and reign with the Lord Jesus Christ in the Millennial kingdom. 

Church, The Importance of the Local

The Importance of the Local Church RD/2 John 002

   1. God created man for community, for relationship, not to live in isolation. No man is an island. Man is a social creature, he is designed for relationship. Part of what it means to be in the image of God is to have relationship. This is inherent in key concepts in understanding God such as love and truth, both of which are emphasised in the first verse of 2 John. There is no such thing as going it alone in the Christian life. That is abnormal. There are cases when that happens and has to happen, but that is not to be considered normative. In emphasising this it is not that there are not certain exceptions but you never build principle on the basis of exceptions. You build principles on the basis of absolutes and then when you find the normal circumstances then you recognise that there are certain exceptions. But the exceptions are recognised to be abnormal and not what is to be expected.    2. Just as God called out a corporate body for Himself in the Old Testament in the nation Israel, God called out a corporate body for Himself in the New Testament. He called that a group in the Old Testament, He called out Israel, and there is an emphasis in the Psalms on corporate worship; not on just individual worship but on believers coming together as a corporate body to worship God, and it is that corporate body that is also significant in the angelic conflict. In the New Testament the corporate body is the church. It is the church as a whole, not just the church body as a whole but the individual local church is called out. Even in the context of 2 John where there is an absentee pastor he is addressing a corporate body of believers.    3. The church is not simply a universal spiritual organism of all believers united in Christ it is comprised of local church assemblies, and God called and authorised local church assemblies not simply as a place to learn doctrine, not simply as a classroom though that is an important and key element of it, but it is a place where believers function in the area of their royal priesthood and spiritual gifts.    4. The problem of human viewpoint and cultural baggage. While “go-it-alone” and self-sufficiency has many good aspects to it, it is not the approach that we see in the Scriptures to the Christian life. The normal Christian life as approached in the New Testament is never viewed as individual, it is viewed as members of the corporate body of Christ. So isolation in the body of Christ is never viewed as something that is normal or desirable, it is always viewed as a second class, third class situation that needs to be rectified in some way if at all possible.    5. In isolation there are several elements that are missing. There is no opportunity for the Lord’s table, and this is something that is supposed to be regular in the Christian life, and it is a corporate worship time. There is not an opportunity to train children in education. A third element that is missing if we live in isolation is that there is no opportunity for the function of spiritual gifts. We need to remember that the definition of a spiritual gift is that they are special abilities given to every believer for the purpose of ministering, serving, relating to edifying other believers.    6. Going it alone limits the obedience to one another passages—that we are to pray for one another, we are to admonish one another, we are to teach one another, serve one another. These are all aspects emphasising the mutual ministry within a local church. For these reasons we are to function in a local church.

Church, The Local

The Importance of the Local Church RD/2 John 017

1.       God created man for community. Genesis 1:26, 27—God creates man in His image and likeness. God as a triune God is eternally social; there is a society in the Trinity. There is eternal relationship with each person in the Trinity. From the very beginning was the institution of marriage and family, and this is society. So there is the importance of a corporate involvement. People are not to live their lives in isolation but there is a corporate relationship in the social dimension.

2.       Just as God called out a corporate body for Himself in the Old Testament and there was the corporate worship in the Old Testament around the ritual of the tabernacle and the temple, God also called out a corporate body for Himself in the New Testament and there is to be corporate worship in the local church. That is part of the function of the priesthood and ambassadorship of each believer. If we isolate the believer from the local church we are isolating them from part of their priesthood and their ambassadorship.

3.       The church, then, is not simply an organism of individual believers that are united to Christ but is a corporate unity. We are one in Christ and members of one another, the Scripture says. God authorised and instituted the local church as the meeting place of believers.

4.       The purpose of the local church is to equip believers to function in their priesthood and their ambassadorship. It is also to teach them how to grow and mature as believers, and to utilise their spiritual gifts for the benefit of the body of Christ. Spiritual gifts were not given for purely self-edification; in fact Paul condemns the Corinthians because that is their idea. Spiritual gifts are given so that believers can benefit others in the body of Christ.

5.       It is the believers in a local church through whom God supplies the logistical support for missionaries and evangelists.

6.       The problem we have from our own culture is that the US has produced a lot of can-do individuals. That is great for a lot of areas but when it comes to the church that is not the attitude we see in the New Testament where there is an emphasis on the local body of believers working together. To be sure there is an emphasis on the individual, individual responsibility, individual growth, and how a believer lives his life is between him and the Lord; but on the other hand there is an emphasis on the church, the local body of believers working together. We have to realise that this idea that I can make it on my own as a believer with just my tape recorder or computer is contrary to the Word of God because it limits and prevents participating in key elements of a local church.  

7.       What are those key elements that are missing? There is no opportunity for the Lord’s table. The Lord’s table for an isolated family is legitimate but it is not considered the normative pattern by the New Testament; it is a group of believers that meet together. Second, there is no opportunity for children’s education in a local church. Then, there is no opportunity for the function of spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts by definition are to function in and for the body of Christ. Fourth, if a believer is isolated it limits the function of his priesthood in relationship to other believers. Fifth, isolation limits the application of all those “one another” passages of Scripture where we are to pray for one another, encourage one another, admonish one another, teach one another, which indicates this mutual function of the priesthood in relationship to other believers. By being in isolation the believer short changes himself and short changes his own opportunities to fulfil the divine mandates in relationship to the body of Christ.

8.       While a believer can get the information necessary to grow spiritually through non-face to face teaching this is not viewed as the best or the normative situation in the New Testament. Face to face teaching is a superior way of communication.

9.       In the early church they did not always have trained pastors and so training occurred through non-face to face teaching. But we always watch out that we don’t fall into the trap of thinking that we can just go it alone.

2 John 1:13 NASB “The children of your chosen sister greet you.” “Chosen sister” would be the home church in Ephesus. Remember, ekklesia [e)kklhsia] is a feminine noun in the Greek, so church would be referred to as feminine.     

Comparisons Between Jesus and Moses

Three comparisons between Jesus and Moses

RD/Heb. 032b

   1. The Old Covenant is surpassed by the New Covenant. It is replaced by the New Covenant.  The Old Covenant was never intended to be permanent. 

   2. The limited access you had to God through a human mediator in the Mosaic system has been replaced by direct access to God for Church Age believers.  So you had limited access through a mediator in the Old Testament through a priestly system.  In the New Testament you have direct access.  So there is a comparison and contrast between the priesthood.  So now we have every believer as a priest with immediate access to God.

   3. Moses was a faithful servant in the house whereas Christ is a faithful Son over the house.  That is crucial for understanding where the writer is taking them.

Confession

Confession     RD/1John/013

Questions that come up about confession

1 John 1:9 is the only place in the New Testament that uses the word “confession.” So how can it be said that confession is such a vital part of the believer’s life? Principle: Confession has always been a vital part of the believer’s life in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Second principle: The statement that if you say you have to confess, it is legalism. Legalism was never the basis for either salvation or the spiritual life in the Old Testament. The observance of sacrifices and ritual in the Old Testament was grace. God’s basis for salvation in the Old Testament was based on the grace promise that he would provide a saviour who would pay the penalty for their sins in the future. Following the procedures of the sacrifices were procedures they followed that pictured the future provision of God’s grace solution at the cross. They weren’t saved because of the sacrifice, they were saved because of their faith in the provision of the saviour. They weren’t sanctified by obeying the Law; the Law was to show them they were sinners. Furthermore, the Law was the code of conduct, the legal code for the whole nation which included believers and unbelievers alike. So to say that confession in the New Testament is legalistic then to be logical it would have to be said that sanctification and salvation in the Old Testament was based on legalism and works and not grace. The word “confession” is used only once in the New Testament, but God only needs to say it once, it doesn’t gain validity and infallibility because God repeats it twice. But God has repeated the principle throughout the Old and New Testaments.

Constrast between the Rapture and the Second Coming

Contrast between the Rapture and the Second Coming

RD/John 077

1.       At the Rapture Christ comes for His own, the church. At the Second Coming Jesus Christ comes with His own; the church accompanies Him.

2.       At the Rapture Christ comes in the air, in the clouds; he does not come all the way to the earth. At the Second Coming Christ comes to the earth, to the Mount of Olives.

3.       At the Rapture Christ claims His bride. At the Second Coming He comes with His bride.

4.       At the Rapture there is the translation of all believers, alive and dead. At the Second Coming there is no translation at all.

5.       Those who live through the Tribulation who are believers do not receive resurrection bodies at the end of the Tribulation, they still have their mortal bodies and they will marry and have children and repopulate the earth during the Millennial kingdom. It is their children who will have the opportunity to reject Christ, to reject the grace of God during the Millennium. It is those who reject salvation during the Millennium who will rebel and align themselves with Satan when he is released at the end of the Millennium for the last great revolt against God in human history.

6.       The Rapture is imminent. That means there are no signs that have to be fulfilled prior to the Rapture, no prophecy that has to be fulfilled; it can happen at any moment, nothing precedes it. At the Second Coming there are definite predicted signs.

7.       The Tribulation begins after the Rapture (not immediately after). At the Second Coming it is the Millennial kingdom that follows the Tribulation.

8.       The Rapture is for believers only and the Second Coming affects all mankind.

What Jesus is pointing out is that in order for Him to completely demonstrate what His love for the disciples means he has to leave. What we are going to see Him develop in His answer is He leaves so that he can send another comforter, the Holy Spirit, and all that comes with the Holy Spirit and all of the spiritual assets that we receive for the spiritual life in the church age is going to further develop all of these aspects of Jesus’ tremendous love for us. But it is necessary for Him to leave in order to give these greater grace gifts. That is how He answers the first question.

Cosmic System

Key points on the Cosmic System

RD/1 John/084

1.       General definition: The cosmic system is referring to Satan’s orderly, cohesive and multi-faceted system of thinking which includes a purpose, policy and structure of authority designed to subvert the human race and gain control over the world he now rules. We get the word “cosmic” from the Greek word kosmos [kosmoj] and it refers to that which is orderly and structured. So when we talk about worldliness we are not talking about particular behaviour patterns as much as we are talking about a certain structured way of thinking. The Bible presents the fact that there are different ways of thinking about reality. There is God’s way of thinking about reality and there is the creature’s way of thinking about reality that aligns itself with Satan. By saying the cosmic system is orderly we see the fact that there is logic to it. It is internally consistent if we grant the assumption of Satan, and that is that the creature has the right to define reality. (Whenever we are in a debate, if we grant the assumptions of our opponent, if our opponent is logically consistent with his assumptions, we have lost the debate. That is if we allow him to get away with it. If his assumptions are true then everything he says based on that, if he is logically consistent, then his argument can’t be refuted) It is multi-faceted which means there are lot of different dimensions to it. They may be religious or philosophical, but every one of them says something about ultimate reality and what ultimate reality is like. Ultimate reality to the believer is God. The term metaphysical has to do with the study of ultimate reality and we have today a rise in metaphysical religion in the whole new age movement. Usually what is meant by the term metaphysical religion today, as opposed to the classic study of metaphysic philosophy, is usually some form of new age mysticism or transcendentalism, or even séances and necromancy which are all part of a metaphysical religious system. All of these different types of thinking are simply different manifestations of Satan’s original thinking at the time of his fall. All of these systems have a purpose, policy and structure. Their purpose is all designed to subvert God’s authority. They contain various policies and structures of authority designed to subvert the human race and gain control over the society of man which Satan now rules.

2.       The cosmic system, then, is a reflection of the thinking that characterized the fall of Satan. We can summarise that with two words: autonomy and antagonism. The word “autonomy” comes from two Greek words: autos [a)utoj] meaning self; nomos [nomoj] meaning law—self-law. This emphasises the fact that the creature considers himself to be the ultimate determiner of law or reality. So that the creature, then, has the right to determine reality. As reality the creature defines values (what is right and what is wrong), what should be worshipped and what should not be worshipped, ethics, norms and standards, right and wrong. Under the category of antagonism we are talking about hostility to divine viewpoint. So at every point Satan is hostile or antagonistic to divine viewpoint, even though at the surface it may present a system of religion that seems compatible with Christianity. That is why we have certain Christian cults—they borrow certain terminology and methodology. There may seem to be compatibility with Christianity but there is a complete breakdown of this once we get inside the system. In autonomy Satan is saying that he the creature has the right to be like God, he has the right to determine what is right and wrong. In antagonism he is hostile to everything that God is attempting to do.

3.       Autonomy is the self-oriented feature of the cosmic system which elevates the creature to the position of final authority for determining reality and truth. Antagonism is the God-oriented feature which expresses the creature’s rejection of and hostility toward the plan of God, the Word of God and the people of God. As James said, a friend of the world (cosmic system) is at enmity with God. It is either/or; there is no compatibility between the two systems.

4.       The root characteristic, therefore, of cosmic thinking is a rejection of the creator-creature distinction. This is a foundational doctrine that needs to be developed a little. There is a distinction between God as the creator and man as the creature, and every single pagan way of thought, philosophical or religious, all break down eventually in terms of a violation of the creator-creature distinction which is unique to a biblical perspective. It is in contrast to every other form of thinking.

5.       The most important and distinguishing characteristic of the God of the Bible, i.e. the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is that He is the creator. This is fundamental to the entire Bible. That is why the debate over creation versus evolution is so important. Origins affect everything—every metaphysical system, every religious system, every philosophical system has some view of ultimate origins. It is that view of origins that in turn affects everything—the view of knowledge, the view of the makeup of man, values, norms and standards, law, politics, economics, history, education. Every single issue in life goes back to origins. If we try to compromise what the Bible says with any human viewpoint system of origin we are undercutting everything else in the Bible. The importance of this doctrine is illustrated in Revelation 4:11 NASB “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” The context of that verse is the throne room of God; it takes place in the future, the time of the beginning of the Tribulation. Why is the Lord deemed worthy? The emphasis here is not on the fact that He is the redeemer but first and foremost because “You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created.” Biblically redemption and God’s plan of salvation is built on the foundation of His role as creator. Redemption is meaningless if it is cut loose from the doctrine of God as the creator of everything. Again and again when we are given an explanation or content of Paul’s evangelistic message to the Gentiles in Acts he begins his witness to a Gentile audience, not at the tomb, not at the cross, not with sin, but always with creation. If we don’t have the God we are being saved by as the creator God then the God we are being saved by is just any other god. They have to be distinguished. E.g. Acts 14:15. Before Paul even gets to the gospel he is challenging their very concept of ultimate reality, that it is not this God who is part of the universe but the God who is completely distinguished and separate from the universe. Acts 17:24, the God who made the world and all things in it, etc. In Romans 1:19, 20 he starts with God as creator.

6.       The Bible’s presentation of God as the creator: He creates ex nihilo, from nothing. God, according to the Scripture, is completely distinct from all creation. By contrast, in human viewpoint all the pagan deities are part of the creation. Creation is always explained as a natural process, so that the gods are all part of the process, there is no ex nihilo creation. There are these gods who either create the universe described in the sense of procreation in which one of the gods gives birth to the universe, which means it comes out of them (it is not creation ex nihilo, it is created from something already there), or some god is slain and his body is cut up and spread out to become the universe. So the universe, then, is equal to these gods or goddesses. That is where the idea of pantheism, that the universe if God, comes from. There is no point where there is nothing, so this is in complete contrast to the biblical view of God as distinct from all matter and all creation in the universe, and all pagan systems. The difference is that according to the Bible, on the divine viewpoint side, the ultimate reality is distinct from the universe and is defined as a person with whom we can have a personal relationship, a person who thinks and interacts with man. In paganism the gods are all part of the material universe, so ultimately there is no relationship, we are pushed back to something that is ultimately simply material in one sense or another. Furthermore, in paganism usually what creates this is some sort of chaos. Under human viewpoint, then, it is the creature or some cog in the mechanism of nature that determines the nature of problems and their solutions. So something inside determines reality whereas biblically God, who is outside the system, determines reality. If we start with the God of the Bible we can draw three conclusions: a) Because He is a thinking God He has a plan. This isn’t something that is purely random; b) that plan is expressed by His Word. As a person He communicates and He has communicated in such a way that He can be understood by man. Truth, then, is what corresponds to His Word. So in biblical viewpoint we can have truth with a capital T. In contrast, if we start with creation from inside then we have chaos and chance rule because there is no ultimate certainty because the only thing that brings order and stability out of chaos is the creature and it is only a temporary order, a semblance of order; c) the creature, then, is the one who determines reality; d) that means that man becomes the one who determines truth, values, problems and solutions. Truth becomes relative with a small t.

7.       When man determines the nature of God that is idolatry. When man sits inside the system and says God must be this way, that way, or another way, and creates in his own mind a concept of what God is and what God must be like, that is idolatry. Idolatry does not start with external images of wood and stone, idolatry begins in the soul when the creator God of the Bible is rejected and man on his own begins to supplement that with his own ideas. This is what Paul states in Romans 1:21-23 NASB “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.” In other words, before he generates gods in the form of animals he first rejects the creator God of the Bible and then generates from his own imagination his own concepts of what God must be like.

8.       Therefore in autonomy man, as man is a law unto himself, seeks to be the final determiner and definer of reality. These constructs of reality, whether they take the form of religious expression or philosophical speculations, are all forms of idolatry. What happens in idolatry is that the creature takes something inside creation, the system, some detail of life, and elevate it to the position of God. An example of this kind of deification is expressed in what has come to be known as mind-science cults. These are cults that glorify human thinking, that human thinking can shape and determine reality. These are expressed in terms of non-religious ideas, as well as in religious ideas, e.g. Christian science, transcendentalism. In more non-religious ideas sensitivity training, mind control, etc., where thinking determines reality. Sometimes this is called positive thinking, the power of positive thinking, i.e. ultimately your attitude, your thinking determines reality. The idea behind all of these mind-science cults is that you can create and manipulate your own reality. One of the primary techniques that is used in these systems is called creative visualisation. Sometimes it is called centring, sometimes it comes under the guise of relaxation therapy and self-hypnosis techniques, but the most common term is creative visualisation. There is usually in all of these systems some sort of emphasis on healing, various techniques that can be mastered to help trigger “God’s” healing power, the healing power of the universe, that there is a need to learn how to think certain ways, say certain things, and they talk about faith a lot. But faith isn’t viewed as trusting and relying upon the truth of a revelatory statement of God, which is what faith is in Christianity. Faith is a power, simply believing that what God says is true and relying upon it. But in these cults and metaphysical religions faith is used as an inherent power, that if you get it right it is going to release the healing power of the universe, and that will be defined in some way as spirituality. The warning here is that these techniques are also the same techniques that are used in the pagan religions to generate various mystical experiences, visions, and to introduce an altered state of consciousness. Altered state of consciousness does not mean that one becomes unconscious or trance-like, but it does orient to this metaphysical realm where the mind becomes open to the so-called powers of the universe. What this really does is set a person up for demon possession, or demon influence if one is a believer.

1 John 5:21 NASB “Little children, guard yourselves from idols.” We guard ourselves from idols by understanding cosmic thinking and by not being influenced by the cosmic thinking around us which is extremely subtle and constantly trying to manipulate us into defining God according to various abstract ideas and not as He is defined and revealed in the Scriptures.

Cosmic System (Principles of)

Principles: What happens to a believer who is mired or enmeshed in the cosmic system? RD/Gen/103

1)      Definition of the cosmic system: This is from the Greek word κόσμος kósmos which refers to an orderly system of thinking. Analogy: The cosmic thought that is the cultural values of the community or world around us, whatever it may be. Every culture has its views about life, its views about ultimate reality; and its views about ultimate reality or God affect its values. Values are displayed in terms of laws, in terms of social institutions, in terms of marriage, family, government—all of these things flow out of one’s views of ultimate reality. This, then, develops itself out into other areas such as music, visual arts, theatre, dramatic art, etc. All that is part of the cosmic system. There is a world view that is antithetical to a biblical world view. The cosmic system is basically the thinking of Satan. It is first and foremost antagonistic to God. No matter how much God-talk there is, no matter how much people hold up their Bible, go to church, go through ritual, praise and worship for 45-minutes, it is just human works, a salve on the conscience. At the very core, though, because it is not biblical, it is antagonistic to God. Take somebody who goes to church once in every three or four weeks or every time on Sunday, and basically they have right beliefs but there is no real drive forward in their spiritual life. Is that person positive? No, they are not because they are not going anywhere. Positive means that you understand the truth and you want to know the truth and want to go forward in your spiritual life. These people say they believe the right things but it is not evident in anything going on in their life. That is because they are antagonistic to God. They are not going to come up and shake their fist in God’s face but they are not positive either. The reality of God and Bible doctrine isn’t affecting their day-to-day decision-making at all. They are just out there on the periphery. That is negative volition—a mild sort of negative volition, not like some fire-breathing atheist, but it is still antagonistic to God because it is not positive to God. The second element of cosmic thinking is that it autonomous towards man. Autonomy is a word that means self-law, man ultimately decides for himself, and it is an emphasis that says, “God, you just stay out of it, I am going to lead my own life and make my own decisions about what is right and what is wrong.” This is what is at the core of the cosmic system, therefore the cosmic system always generates hostility towards the Bible and its establishment principles. You can’t get away from it, it always generates hostility towards the truth.

2)      This antagonism to the word can be overt or subtle. Overt is a clear antagonism or rejection of the Word. Or, negative volition can be masked as religion or just a kind disregard. They might go to church but it has no impact on their thinking whatsoever. They don’t live any different from the unbeliever down the street. The unbeliever down the street may be nice, may be socially involved, may have a great personality, may give a lot to civic causes and be involved in things, but he is still operating on pure paganism. There are Christians like that, they just show up here and there and they sing songs, and it is all external. There is just this shell but they are not learning to think biblically.

3)      Negative volition is anything short of being genuinely positive. Are you driving forward in your spiritual life? Is there still a hunger in your soul to know what God says and to live for Him because of where you are heading? That is positive volition.

4)      Like Lot, the negative believer seeks to enjoy all the benefits of the present cosmic system without paying attention to God. They want to enjoy all that the culture has to offer them. There is nothing wrong with enjoying different elements of the culture. It is when that is the heart-beat of the life as opposed to doctrine that is where problems are run into.

5)      One result is that there will eventually be an internal conflict of guilt. If you are a child of God and the Holy Spirit is in you, the Holy Spirit isn’t going to let just float on down the road in carnality. He is going to constantly remind you of doctrine and the Lord is going to discipline you, according to Hebrews chapter twelve, and you are not going to get away with it.

6)      There will appear a superficial rapport with the world—that is the struggle that Lot has—and that produces a callous in the soul towards doctrine. But we are called upon as believers to live in a way that is separate from the world. This is designed to protect the believer’s soul from the subtle influences of cosmic thinking around him. It is addressed to the social life of believers. It involves marriage, business, our closest friends and confidants. 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship [rapport] hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever?” There is no value in a relationship between a believer and an unbeliever. That doesn’t mean you can’t have friends that are unbelievers. You need to have some friends that are unbelievers so that you can build relationships and witness to them, but those who are you most intimate, valued friends, partners, wives, husbands, need to be believers. If you want to mess up your spiritual life, if you are single, just end up marrying an unbeliever. It is self-destructive of the spiritual life. 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good morals.” This is just a standard proverb that Paul quotes. Sooner or later, if you surround yourself with people who aren’t positive, who aren’t operating on divine viewpoint, they are going to drag you down and you are going to be influenced, and your spiritual life is going to be degraded because of them.

7)      Eventually the scale of values becomes perverted. This is what happens once you start turning a blind eye to these things it begins to degrade and erode your own sense of absolutes, and compromise sets in. Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” What happens in carnality and paganism is is that the scale of values, the scale of absolutes, morality and ethics, becomes totally perverted and reversed. This is why there is the kind of reaction that Lot did when he began to plead with the men of Sodom. They stood back and said, “Look at him, he keeps acting as a judge. He’s trying to tell us what is right and what is wrong.” They become the victims of slander and ridicule, and this is what happens to many Christians today: they take a stand for the truth and that there is something called the truth.

8)      This results in a loss of respect for life, for people as people in the image of God, genuine compassion for those who hurt.

9)      When believers get involved in the cosmic system you start seeing role reversals: role reversal in sex, role reversal in marriage, role reversal in church (where they want to have women as deacons and pastors), and this is all a sign of the influence of paganism in our culture.

10)   Sexual sin no longer brings a sense of shame. Our sense of right and wrong is being calloused by the fact that we are always being exposed to this talk in the culture around us.

11)   Personal comforts become more real and valuable than truth. This is what happens so often in marriages. People aren’t really living in a marriage where they are growing together, what matters is their own personal comfort. It is just some way to feed what I want and somehow you get what you want out of this and we are going to call this a marriage. That is not a biblical marriage at all, where you have two people growing together, sharing with each other, and growing together in maturity in their relationship with the Lord.

Cosmic System, The

The Cosmic System  RD/John 087

Definition: The cosmic system is Satan’s orderly, cohesive and multifaceted (they may be opposite one another, e.g. different world religions may teach what appear to be opposing points but nevertheless are part of Satan’s cosmic system because they promote this often as an agenda) system of thinking which include a purpose, a policy (based on works, so there is a direct distinction and antagonism between biblical Christianity and all the world’s religions), and a structure of authority designed to subvert the human to gain control over the world he now rules. This cosmic system includes the whole variety of world religions—all of which are man’s attempt to gain God’s approval through his own efforts, his own works, Christianity is a relationship with God based upon the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The cosmic system includes the whole gamut of religion, philosophy, culture, political theories (the psalmist says it is better to trust in God than in kings), economic theories, and ethical systems. Here are a vast number of ways of organizing cosmic thought, but at the centre of all of these competing philosophies and religions are two characteristics which define cosmic thinking: a) arrogance, or autonomy, from the Greek words AUTOS and NOMOS meaning self-law; that ultimately man centres authority in the universe in the creation itself rather than in God. Man wants to be the one who defines the purpose and meaning and significance of life, and he claims to be the one with the ability to provide that. This is exemplified by Satan and his five “I wills” given in Isaiah 14. It is an assertion of independence from God—that I can define the issues of life, solve the problems of life, on my own and independent from God; b) an antagonism to the truth: antagonism to Christianity, antagonism to doctrine, expressed in John 15:18 by the word “hatred.” This is an important word because it tells us that as believers the cosmic system around us that permeates everything that we are involved in despises us as a believer, it hates us as a believer, and the believer is walking around from the moment he trusts Christ as saviour with a bulls eye right in the middle of his forehead and the world system is aiming at him day in and day out. The problem with most Christians is that they would rather compromise and assimilate with the world system to avoid being a target, rather than relying exclusively upon God. According to the Scripture there are only two competing ways of approaching life: God’s way, expressed in the Bible and is called doctrine, truth, light, wisdom, and sometimes referred to as divine viewpoint—on every issue of life from music, art, law, personal life, marriage, etc.; every subject is addressed in the Word of God. So the Bible presents God’s way of looking at life. Then there is man’s way which is called earthly, natural, demonic, darkness, the lie, and foolishness. Again, the root idea of cosmos is an orderly systematic approach to life, and so the cosmic system, then, is antagonistic and hateful of you as a believer and continually roars against you to get you to compromise with it.

“If the world hates you [and it does], you know that it has hated me before it hated you.” Satan is the ruler of this cosmic system and throughout history God has provided various protections for the human race from the incursions of Satan and the demons so that the human race can survive in the angelic conflict. God provided protection in the Old Testament at Sinai when He gave the law, and before that through the various covenants to provide a framework of legal protection so that if man operated within those establishment principles there would be a measure of protection from the evil that would ensue. In the period prior to the flood there was the Satanic attack on the human race when the “sons of God” [fallen angels] took for themselves wives in an attempt to destroy the genetic purity of the race and thus prevent God’s plan of salvation. God had to judge the earth at the flood, Later He had to judge it at the tower of Babel and scatter the languages in order to protect man. The God called out the nation Israel through Abraham in order to provide a specific nation through whom He would work His grace initiative plan. Primarily the way He did this in the Old Testament was through the divine institutions.

Cosmic Thinking

The Whole issue of Cosmic Thinking

RD/James/068

1)      The word “cosmos” κόσμος kósmos relates to the devil’s domain which is planet earth. Satan is called the prince of the power of the air, he is the god of this age, and he is the one who is in control of the earth right now. So all of his systems of cosmic thinking, no matter how many there might be, ultimately all relate to Satan’s domain and they are all under girded by the same arrogance that he expressed in his fall, that he should be like God.

2)      Satan gained his first victory in the garden of Eden when he convinced Adam to reject God’s decree that “if you eat from the fruit you will die.” Adam decided that he could only know truth on the basis of empiricism, he couldn’t know truth on the basis of revelation. So he rejected God’s revelation and that set the course and he ends up in sin. Adam’s sin was wilful and so Satan gained his first victory by convincing Adam to think about his environment differently than the way God had interpreted his environment. There were certain things Adam could have learned about his environment and there were something he did learn about his environment empirically through observation and looking around. But Adam could not correctly interpret his environment apart from revelation. When Adam looked at the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would not have discerned any difference between that fruit and all of the other fruit if God had not interpreted his environment for him and said that he could not eat that fruit, and that of he did he would instantly die. So revelation is always necessary for man to correctly interpret and understand his circumstances. You always have to have divine viewpoint in order to correctly understand your environment. But Satan convinced Adam that he could think independently of God and come to truth as a result of empiricism.

3)      Adam and the woman became the first citizens in Satan’s kingdom because at that point they became spiritually dead. Being spiritually dead means that you are a citizen of Satan’s domain. That domain has its own philosophy of life.

4)      The first act was that they tried to solve their problems on the basis of their own limited resources, so they went out and sewed fig leaves together to try to cover up the consequences of their sin. So we see in that initial sin in the garden all the characteristics that take place in the first stages of reversionism: self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-justification, and self-deception.

5)      So since Adam’s fall every human being is born into the kingdom of Satan, the domain of Satan, and we learn to think like “our father the devil.” We think just like Satan in terms of arrogance, and this is what under girds all cosmic thinking.

6)      Once we believe in Jesus Christ we are transferred from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.

7)      This means that the believer is no longer spiritually dead but he is spiritually alive, though spiritually ignorant. Just like a new-born baby he has no comprehension of the world he is in. All of the ideas that fill up the mentality of his soul are human viewpoint and false. So he has to go through a massive re-education. We have to learn how to think as God wants us to think and not think on the basis of rationalism and empiricism and mysticism or any other forms of human viewpoint thinking.

8)      This means that God in grace has once again, just like He did with Adam in the garden, has interpreted reality for us. He has told us how we are to analyse, evaluate and interpret reality, and that is given through Bible doctrine, through the Word of God.

9)      When the believer goes into reversionism he completely rejects truth and the result then is slavery. Remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees: “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” If you reject the truth the opposite is slavery, slavery to the sin nature, to the lusts of the sin nature, slavery to the passions and emotions of the soul. This is the characteristic of those who are friends of the world. The friend of the world makes himself the enemy of God.

Covenant Theology Problem with

Problems with Covenant Theology     RD/Heb. 100b

So you have three problems.

   1. First of all this system merely projects a general idea of covenant then tries to squeeze the biblical covenants into that theological covenant framework.  They don’t fit.  Their system won’t allow for separate distinct covenants.  Like I pointed out in the past – I don’t have the slide on here for tonight but I pointed out in the past that the Creation Covenant is modified in the Adamic Covenant.  The Adamic Covenant is further modified in the Noahic Covenant.  But that continues today in the signs of the rainbow.   When God steps back and He calls out Abraham, that follows  a totally different track.  It is not a modification of the Creation, Adamic, and Noahic Covenants.  Right?  It is completely different.  He is going to call out Abraham for a specific purpose and the promises are going and the blessings are going to go to Israel.  For them, all the covenants have to be squeezed together and it doesn’t work.

   2. The second problem is that they either do not produce Scripture to substantiate or justify the existence of these covenants or when they do give verses the verses don’t back up what they say it does.

   3.  The third problem is that the Bible nowhere speaks of a Covenant of Works, a Covenant of Redemption, or a Covenant of race; but it does speak of the 8 covenants that I’ve talked about the last couple of weeks which are described in the Bible.

Crowns

Crowns   RD/James/018

1)      There are two types of crowns that are mentioned in the Scriptures. The first word is STEPHANOS [stefanoj], the second is DIADEMA [diadhma]. The DIADEMA is a royal crown and is not the subject of the doctrine of crowns which always uses the term STEPHANOS, which is the victor’s crown. It is a crown given as a reward for successful achievement—for victory in the Olympic Games, for bravery in combat, or for a place of honor at a feast. The STEPHANOS was usually a wreath made from laurel leaves or olive leaves, oak leaves, or similar that was placed upon the head.  It is interesting that the crown of thorns that was placed in Jesus’ head is a STEPHANOS, a victor’s crown. At the time when Satan thought He was administering the defeat to Jesus, God in His sense of humor, has a STEPHANOS of thorns placed upon our Lord’s head to show that in that time of tremendous suffering He was being victorious. Mark 15:17 NASB “They dressed Him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on Him.”

1 Corinthians 9:25 NASB “Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then {do it} to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.”

Philippians 4:1 NASB “Therefore, my beloved brethren whom I long {to see,} my joy and crown, in this way stand firm in the Lord, my beloved.”

2 Timothy 4:8 NASB “in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.” 

1 Peter 5:4 NASB “And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the unfading crown of glory.”

Revelation 2:10 NASB “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, so that you will be tested, and you will have tribulation for ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.”

Revelation 3:11 NASB “I am coming quickly; hold fast what you have, so that no one will take your crown.”

Revelation 4:4 NASB “Around the throne {were} twenty-four thrones; and upon the thrones {I saw} twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white garments, and golden crowns on their heads.”

Revelation 4:10 NASB “the twenty-four elders will fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and will worship Him who lives forever and ever, and will cast their crowns before the throne, saying,”

The DIADEMA is mentioned in Revelation 12:3; 13:1; 19:12.

2)  Each crown included monetary reward, freedom from taxes, children educated at public expense, and a statue of the person, the victor was erected in the public square. The crown is used in Scripture as a symbol for the greatest honors that the Lord can give to a victorious believer, a believer who endures and persists in the midst of all testing to grow to spiritual maturity and spiritual adulthood.

3)  To understand the nature of crowns we must understand the cultural imagery of the games which underlies this metaphor. The believer is compared to an athlete—1 Timothy 2:4, 5 NASB “No soldier in active service entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life, so that he may please the one who enlisted him as a soldier. Also if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.” The rules here are analogous to the mandates of the Christian life. Just as there were rules for the Greek athlete there are mandates for the Christian life. Don’t push that too far, it doesn’t mean that if you violate a rule, a mandate in Scripture, you are disqualified. The way to recover if we do break a rule or violate a mandate or sin is through the use of 1 John 1:9. That is grace; we can recover. For the believer there is grace, divine forgiveness, and so we can move forward in our advance towards spiritual maturity, spiritual adulthood, and reward.

4)  Related to the games, the historical background. The games were well known in the ancient world and they developed in Greece in the 6th century BC. Later under Rome they never had the same glory that they had in Greece. Only free-born Greeks were eligible participants. They entered into a rigorous ten-month schedule of training. The Greek word for this is AGONIZOMAI [a)gwnizomai], from which we get our word “agony.” Athletes were selected by elimination trials in each town. Once the victory was complete tremendous honors were heaped on the victor when he returned home.

5)  As believers we are not to live our Christian lives aimlessly. In ancient Greece they just flailed at one another.

Principle: these rewards can be lost. We can fall away from grace, which means we depart from the truth, we begin living in carnality and under the sin nature, and we lose everything we gain.

Crowns

Crowns                                    RD/Rev. 080b

There are three crowns mentioned in Scripture. These are special awards given to believers who persevere or endure.

The First of these crowns is called the crown of righteousness. This is described and attributed specifically to the believer who advances to spiritual maturity. Every believer has an opportunity to receive the crown of righteousness, according to 2 Timothy 4:7, 8; 2 Peter 3:13.

Secondly, there is the crown of life which seems to be a special capacity above and beyond others in the future kingdom. It goes to those who persevere to spiritual maturity, to persevere in trial: mentioned in James 1:12 and also in Revelation 2:10. So the crown of life seems to be specifically related to those who are martyred or under the threat of martyrdom, losing their life for their faith.

Third, we have the crown of glory which seems to go to pastors and missionaries who are faithful in the communication of the Word of God—1 Peter 5:2-4.

Davidic Covenant

Davidic Covenant                  RD/Heb. 019b

   1. The contract or the covenant between the party of the first part and the party of the second part- the first party is God and the second party is David - is a unilateral contract.  That means it is given by God.  It is established by God.  It is based upon God and God alone for fulfillment.  It is not based on some condition of fulfillment in the party of the second part.  That is David.  It is a freely granted contract.

   2. It promises to David an eternal dynasty, an eternal kingdom, an eternal throne, and an eternal descendent.  The key word in all that is the word eternal.  That means ongoing or never ending.

   3. The promise indicates a line that ends with an eternal descendent.  Either you have an eternal line where you keep having one son after another and that lines go on to eternity or it culminates in a descendent that is infinite or eternal.  He is eternal.  He is also human because He is a physical, genetic descendent from David.  So you have an indication of a somewhat cryptic nature but a clear indication of a divine human ruler. This shows that God Himself will eventually rule mankind as a man in hypostatic union.  That is the second person of the trinity, the Lord Jesus Christ.

4.      The house referred to is David’s dynasty.  Throughout the Middle East at the time of Christ’s birth there was a tremendous fervor for the Messiah.  Even in Gentile nations the word about this Jewish expectation had spread throughout the Parthian Empire and into the Roman Empire.  There were people who had a Messianic expectation.  They were looking for the appearance of the Son of God as the Son of David.  This is clearly seen in Luke 1:32 in Gabriel’s announcement to Mary about the birth of the Messiah.  It is foundational for understanding who Jesus Christ is. The Davidic Covenant is foundational.  You have to understand the Davidic Covenant or you don’t see how Jesus Christ fits into the overall plan of God.    Phase one is the First Advent and accomplishes salvation, the payment for sin.  That is only the first part.  The resolution of evil and resolution of God’s plan comes to fulfillment when Jesus returns at the Second Advent and establishes the kingdom.  That is when all the covenants from the Old Testament are fulfilled.  The Abrahamic Covenant, the land covenant, the Davidic Covenant and the New Covenant all come to fulfillment at that instant when Christ returns at the Second Coming. 

Davidic Sonship, Seven Things related to the

7 things related to His Davidic sonship that emphasizes His humanity.            Heb. 021b

   1. He is the God man Savior who made purification or cleansing for sin.  The God man Savior in His humanity is our substitute.  This is emphasized in Hebrews 1:4. 

   2. At His ascension His humanity is promoted over the angels. So He is elevated through the ascension over the angels.  In His deity He was always over the angels.  In His humanity He now is in authority over the angels.  There is human being at the right hand of God the Father who is at the control helm of the universe and rules over the angels.  Heb 1:3-4

   3. In His humanity He sat down at the right hand of God the Father in order to wait for the giving of the kingdom.  Psalm 2:8 indicates He is waiting to be given the kingdoms as an inheritance.  He is asking for that.   Heb 1:3.

   4. The angels worship him.  This indicates that in His person He is elevated over the angels and is worthy of their worship.  Only deity is worthy of worship.  You never have any creature worship.  He is elevated over the angels.  Heb 1:6

   5. He is the creator of the angels. They are designed to serve Him.  They are designated as angellos that is a term for messengers and they are leitourgos.   They are ministers or servants.  Heb 1:7

   6. He is designated a future king.  The Davidic king who will establish and rule the kingdom for Israel in the Millennial Kingdom and fulfill all the promises given in the Davidic covenant.  Heb 1:8. So He fulfills the promises of the Davidic covenant.

   7.  These angels that He created that He is superior to are commissioned in verse 14.  They are commissioned to serve the Church Age believers those who are said to inherit salvation.  Those who are in training to rule and reign with the Lord Jesus Christ.  These angels are dispatched and commissioned to serve us and to watch us.  This is the basis of guardian angels for believers.

Day of Atonement

 Day of Atonement you have about three major things that happen.  RD/Heb/141b

   1. The first major thing is a sin offering first and a burnt offering.  Why is it in that order?  It’s in that order because Aaron has to solve his sin problem (confession of sin) and then recognize his commitment to God with a burnt offering before he can even go into the Holy of Holies.  That’s the same thing we practice all the time – you have to confess your sins before you can worship or live your spiritual life or move forward or anything of that nature.    2. The second thing that happens is the whole ritual involved with the mercy seat and putting the blood on the mercy seat and the horns of the altar.    3. Then the third thing that happens is the thing with the scapegoat.  Now nothing on the Day of Atonement is related to experiential living – experiential spiritual life.  It has to do with the annual payment of the debt of sin by the nation. It’s not that the blood of bulls and goats can’t do anything.  It can only do it for a year.  And, it has to be renewed every year.  So what happens at the end is he comes out and he has two goats.  On one he puts his hands, recites the sins of the nation and then kills the goat.  The other goat is then taken out into the wilderness.  It’s not taken down the street or across the valley or over the next hill.  It is taken by a trusted assistant the text says.  Why?  Because, if you get some lazy person with no work ethic, as soon as they get around the corner and nobody can see them anymore they’re going to let that goat go.  And, what’s that goat going to do?  He’s going to come right back.  But the whole point of this is to show that sins are completely totally removed and will never be brought up again.  So that goat is taken out into the wilderness where it is let go and never finds its way back because the sins are completely and totally paid for by Christ and they’re not the issue.  That’s not talking about experiential forgiveness although that’s true there.

Defeated Believers

Defeated Believers                             RD/Rev. 086b

Overcomers

1)      The victorious believer receives rewards, privileges and blessings at the judgment seat of Christ, according to .

2)      Victorious believers have different levels of privilege and authority in the kingdom. Some will rule over different amounts, different areas in the kingdom on the earth.

3)      Victorious believers will rule and reign with Christ as kings and priests.

Defeated believers

1)      Defeated believers don’t put doctrine first, they fail to count the cost, they fail to set priorities, they fail to apply the Word, they don’t grow spiritually. As a result there is loss at the judgment seat of Christ.

2)      Often defeated believers are wonderful people, successful in the things of temporal existence and the details of life, but they let the details of life and the obligations of family and bobbies and work crowd out the priority of learning and applying the Word of God.

3)      Defeated believers become distracted by the details of life. They seek happiness in temporal reality and their focus is on earthly things and not on heavenly things.

4)      There is a temporal loss of blessing and happiness as a result because as believers who are carnal, who are not walking by means of the Spirit, they can only have temporal happiness based on the achievement of whatever details of life they think will make them happy. Sooner or later those will disappear.

5)      There is shame for them at the judgment seat of Christ because they realize what they have squandered. They realize that the only thing that they could take with them into eternity is what they acquired spiritually, and so there is temporary shame at the judgment seat of Christ.

6)      There is a loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, they become disinherited but they don’t lose their salvation.

7)      They will enter but not inherit the kingdom. Inheriting the kingdom is different from entering the kingdom.

8)      Their rewards will be destroyed in the lake of fire, as per Revelation 21:8 which says, “Their part will be in the lake of fire.” The word for “part” is the Greek word MEROS [meroj] which indicates an inheritance portion within a will or testament. They sacrifice their inheritance because of their focus on temporal things and it gets burned up in the lake of fire.

Deity of Jesus Christ

Jesus Claims to be Undiminished Deity   RD/John 064

.

1)        In John 6:35 NASB Jesus said: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” He makes this same claim on 6:48, 51. This emphasises spiritual nourishment.

2)        In John 8:12 NASB “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life’.”

3)        In John 8:24 NASB “Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins; for unless you believe that I am {He,} you will die in your sins.” In 8:24, 28, 58 in the English we find the phrase “I am He,” yet “He” is the third person singular personal pronoun autos [a)utoj] and is not found in any of these passages. What Jesus is saying is: “unless you believe that I am you shall die in your sins.” There is one unmistakeable conclusion: Jesus is claiming undiminished deity. This is the doctrine of the hypostatic union.

4)        John 10:7 NASB “So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep’.”

5)        John 10:11 NASB “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Also repeated in v. 14.

6)        John 11:25 NASB “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies’.”

7)        John 14:6 NASB “Jesus said to him, ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me’.” Exclusivity.

8)        John 15:1 NASB “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.” Repeated in v. 5.

All these verses utilising the I am sayings emphasise three things: a) Jesus is clearly identifying Himself with God. He is claming to be undiminished deity. John 4:26; 6:20, 24, 28, 58. He does not want anyone to miss the point, so in 10:30 He says, “I and the Father are one”; b) Jesus is using some aspect of the creation to illustrate something about His character or God’s plan for His life. For example, in John 6:35, 51 where He said “I am the bread of life,” He is emphasising the fact that he is the exclusive source of spiritual nourishment for mankind; c) Jesus is saying something about His essence and His character, that He is the source of life, He is the resurrection, He is the truth. John 11:25; 14:6.

Here in this verse when Jesus says, “Truly, truly, I am,” He then shifts the analogy. In the previous six verses He was the shepherd; now He says, “I am the door of the sheep.” A door has two sides. One is the ingress, the entrance, and one is the egress, the exit. Jesus is talking about the fact that he is the only entry point into eternal life. That is the basic point that He is making in this analogy. He is the only way into eternal life and He is the only way to nourishment in the spiritual life, because when you go out the door you are going out to pasture. This is the feeding and nourishment of the believer in phase two the spiritual life.

John 10:8 NASB “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.” He is saying that “all who came before me,” and it is an interesting phrase in the Greek. He uses the nominative plural of pas [paj], the word for “all.” It is a universal term but it doesn’t necessarily means everyone—all went out to hear John the Baptist. We can assume that not every single individual in Judea made the trek out into the wilderness to hear John. In some passages it may mean the majority but in many other passages it is inclusive, and especially here because it is joined with the next phrase which is a pronoun hosoi [o(soi], masculine nominative plural, which means as many as. So it is translated here as “as many as have come before me.” It includes every single one who came before Him who made a claim to shepherd or lead the people. That includes the Pharisees, the Sadducees, all the false messiahs that came along. Jesus says every one of them were illegitimate, thieves and robbers. When we go back to 10:1 we remember He is comparing His position as the legitimate shepherd in contrast to the illegitimacy of the religious leaders, and the religious leaders are called thieves and robbers. Why are they called thieves and robbers? Because they steal life from the people. If you are proclaiming a false gospel then you are stealing a life from people. The sheep refers to people like the blind man who are positive to God at God-consciousness and who are positive to the gospel and believe in Christ, accept Him as Messiah at gospel hearing. Like the blind man they didn’t listen. They may have listened for a while and may have given lip service, but in their heart they’re positive to God and they are going to respond when they hear the gospel.

John 10:9 NASB “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.” The word “if” is a 3rd class condition: maybe yes, maybe no. Salvation is up to the individual’s volition. “… “he will be saved” is future tense, so that is talking about phase three salvation, absent from the body and face to face with the Lord. The pasturing has to do with phase two salvation: feeding. We have to be fed spiritual food, spiritual sustenance, in order to grow spiritually. We can only be nourished by the Word of God. Entering in is phase one salvation. Going in and out is just a picture of the sheep. Every day they went out to pasture and came back in at night. It is coming to Bible class on a regular basis in order to get fed.

John 10:10 NASB “The thief [the religious leaders] comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have {it} abundantly.” Religious leaders come only to steal and kill. Religion is the devil’s greatest tool and religion is destructive to mankind. Religion has never produced freedom or the society that advocates freedom. Only biblical Christianity has the basis to understand true freedom and that is in Jesus Christ. Religion is the worst thing that we can get involved in. It constantly seeks to control and to tell you thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. In contrast, Jesus said: “I cam that they might have life [phase one, eternal life]…” Jesus came to give life; religion cannot give life. Secondly, “and have {it} abundantly.” That is the result of pasturing. The abundant life is not yours simply because you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You will have eternal life, never-ending existence with God in heaven; but if you want to have abundant life, which has to do with capacity for life, for blessing and for happiness, that only comes because there is Bible doctrine in your soul and you have learned to think as Christ thinks, and you are applying doctrine to all the issues of life. Then and only then are we going to have the abundant life that Christ gives us. It is the result of the pasture concept, feeding on the Word of God.   

John 10:11 NASB “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” Jesus is called the good shepherd in this chapter, He is called the great shepherd in Hebrews 13:20,21, and He is the chi9ef shepherd in 1 Peter 5:4. So one of His basic characteristics in terms of His role in God’s plan is to be a shepherd.

Deity of Jesus Christ in John

How Jesus has claimed deity in the Gospel of John

 RD/John 068

1)      He has continuously used the phrase ego eimi [e)gw e)imi] in the Greek. It is the Greek translation of the proper name of God, YHWH which we transliterate as Yahweh. In 4:26 He states this to the woman at the well: “If you believe that I am.” He states it to the disciples in John 6:20. He makes the statement “I am the bread of life” in 6:35, 48. In 6:41 the Jews reacted to Him and complained because He said ego eimi, “I am the bread of life.” In 6:51 He uses ego eimi again, “I am the living bread.” In 8:12 He says, “I am the Light of the world.” At the end of chapter 8 he said, “Before Abraham was [ginomai], I am [e)gw e)imi].”

2)      Jesus claimed to perform the identical functions of God the Father. In 5:18 he says, The Father is continuously working, and I am continuously working.”

3)      He claimed deity when He called Himself the Son of God. He was not claiming that He had been generated by God, the descendant of God. He was not emphasising the incarnation and virgin birth, he is emphasising deity. He was not claiming generation from God as much as He was claiming the essence of deity: “I am God.” So by calling Himself God in 5:19 and 5:25 He is claiming full deity.

4)      Jesus claimed to be the source of life and to give life just like God the Father did in John 5:21, 28. Being the source of life is a characteristic of deity and Jesus claimed that for Himself.

5)      He claimed to have the equal right to judgment as God the Father. John 5:22.

6)      He claimed equal honour with God the Father, that just as the Father was worthy of all honour so He was worthy of all honour, 5:23.

7)      He claimed to give life to the dead just as God the Father gives life to the dead, 5:21.

8)      He was sent directly from God, 6:29, 38, 51, 57; 7:28, 29.

9)      He is the only one to see and reveal God the Father, 6:46.

In John 10:31-33 we see Jesus’ dialogue with the Jews and their reaction. First of all, they understand clearly what He said, that He was claiming to be God. John 10:31 NASB “The Jews picked up stones again to stone Him. [32] Jesus answered them, ‘I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?’” He uses the aorist active of the verb deiknumi [deiknumi] which means to reveal, to demonstrate the meaning of something, to present evidence. [33] “The Jews answered Him, ‘For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out {to be} God’.” They understand that He has claimed to be God, but notice how they twist it: “You, being a man, make yourself out to be God.” Jesus is not a man who claimed to be God; Jesus is God who claimed to be a man. The Scriptures do not present Jesus as a man who claims to be God, the Scripture presents Jesus as God who became a man. We have to make that point. Notice how sophisticated Jesus’ response is.

John 10:34 NASB “Jesus answered them, ‘Has it not been written in your Law, ‘I SAID, YOU ARE GODS’?” We have to look at His use of the word “law” here. This is a general term for the Old Testament. Jesus is going to quote, not from the Torah but from the Psalms, specifically Psalm 82. Te subject in the Psalm is going to deal with the Supreme Court of heaven and God’s authority as the ultimate judge in the universe. Psalm 82:1 NASB “God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers. [2] How long will you judge unjustly And show partiality to the wicked? Selah.” There is an unjust system operating in Israel at this time. The call is made, v. 3 “Vindicate the weak and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and destitute. [4] Rescue the weak and needy; Deliver {them} out of the hand of the wicked. [5] They do not know nor do they understand; They walk about in darkness; All the foundations of the earth are shaken. [6] I said, ‘You are gods, And all of you are sons of the Most High’.” This is the verse Jesus is talking about. God is the one speaking. To whom is He speaking? He is speaking to earthly judges and rulers in Israel. So this is talking about the rulers of the people. These rulers are in the divine viewpoint of legislation. Remember, Romans chapter thirteen says God appoints the rulers of this world as ministers of righteousness. God, in Genesis chapter nine in the Noahic covenant, delegated judicial authority to the human race. Because he delegated this judicial authority human judges are called elohim because they function in the place of the Supreme Court of heaven who is God-Elohim. That is the thrust of this passage. The human judges are called to repent of their unjust and inconsistent application of the judicial principle because they represent the Supreme Court of heaven.

Jesus goes into this lesser-known psalm and to this one verse, and He plucks out this one phrase and hinges His whole argument on this. So His first principle is going to be that there is a principle in Scripture of calling the human rulers of Israel elohim. 

John 10:35 NASB “If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken)…” The Scripture cannot be broken; the infallibility of the Word of God. The Pharisees understood that. They believed in the infallibility of Scripture and Jesus believed in the infallibility of Scripture, right down to the minutia. [36] “… ‘do you say of Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?” Jesus uses a very sophisticated argument here. He is basing this completely on an understanding of the infallibility of Scripture, “the Word of God cannot be broken,” and on one word, elohim [pl.]. Jesus is using an argument from the lesser to the greater here. He is saying: “If you don’t have a problem applying elohim to human rulers, how much more is it correct to apply that to the Son of God who has demonstrated that he is deity by all the works that he has performed?” 

John 10:37 NASB “If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; [38] but if I do them, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.” This again is a very profound argument. The emphasis is on belief here on the basis of His works. Jesus is validating the fact that you can have saving faith based on miracles. In fact, that is John’s whole thesis, 20:31. So a faith based on the signs, evidences and credentials that Jesus established by His miracles is not some lesser faith.

John 10:39 NASB “Therefore they were seeking again to seize Him, and He eluded their grasp.” He slips out of the temple area and He departs.

John 10:40 NASB “And He went away again beyond the Jordan to the place where John was first baptizing, and He was staying there.” And notice the contrast here. [41] “Many came to Him and were saying, ‘While John performed no sign, yet everything John said about this man was true’.” And what was the result? [42] “Many believed in Him there.” They didn’t believe in Him in the temple. Notice the contrast between the religious leaders of the people who reject Jesus and the people who come to Him out in the desert, who had to go out of their way to get to Him. Many believed in Him and accepted the free gift of salvation, even though it wasn’t convenient. Jesus makes the offer but he doesn’t beg people to be saved. 

Demon Influence and Demon Possession

Demon Influence and Demon Possession

RD/James/072

1)      Demons can affect humans in three different ways: demon influence, demon oppression, and demon possession.

2)      Definition: Demonic influence is the invasion of a person’s soul by cosmic thinking. Believers and unbelievers can be demon influenced. In contrast demon possession is defined as the invasion and control of an unbeliever’s body by a demon. Under demon influence whenever a person is operating on human viewpoint thinking, worldly thinking, cosmic thinking, they are operating on doctrines of demons and therefore are to some degree demon influenced. Biblical examples of demon influence are Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5—“…Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit…” They were believers, they were not demon possessed; he is affecting their thinking. Judas Iscariot at the beginning, John 13:3; Satan put it into his heart to betray the Lord. That is demon influence at that stage. Then Demas, one of Paul’s associates. 2 Timothy 4:10 NASB “for Demas, having loved this present world [kosmoj], has deserted me...”  Only unbelievers can be demon possessed. Examples: the men in the tombs, Mary Magdalene out of whom Jesus cast seven demons, and there are various others mentioned in the Scriptures that were demon possessed. Demon oppression occurs when a person gets involved in extended carnality and is overtly attached, although he may not know it, by demons as part of divine discipline which results in depression, misery and unhappiness. But not all depression, misery and unhappiness involves demons. One of the things to make a point out of is that is doesn’t matter where you are being attacked, whether it is from an external base in terms of something demonic, or whether it is from your own sin nature, or whether it is the cosmic system. The source of the attack doesn’t matter. The modern deliverance stuff says you have to know where it comes from. No you don’t, because the solutions are always the same: apply doctrine. It is doctrine that defeats all the enemies, period. As long as you are in fellowship, waking by means of the Spirit and applying doctrine you are okay. The only example that the Scripture clearly states for demon oppression is King Saul in the Old Testament.

3)      Demon influence can be direct or indirect. Direct demon influence occurs when Satan or a demon directly a person by putting ideas into their thinking. Acts 5, the episode with Ananias and Sapphira. They were controlled by materialism lust and wanted everybody to think they were giving everything to the church when in fact they weren’t. Acts 5:3 NASB “But Peter said, ‘Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back {some} of the price of the land?’” That is a thought. It is not that Satan is indwelling Annaias but that he is filling his mind with ideas. Temptation can come from an external source. John 13:2 NASB “During supper, the devil having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, {the son} of Simon, to betray Him…” So direct demon influence occurs when Satan or a demon directly a person by putting ideas into their thinking. But we don’t know that. Judas didn’t know that; Ananias and Sapphira didn’t know that. The only way that Ananias knew that Satan was the source of the idea in his mind was that Peter told him—revelation. That is direct influence. Indirect demon influence occurs when doctrines of demons, false ideas, are introduced into the believer’s thinking through the culture around him, through cosmic thinking. 1 John 2:15 NASB “Do not love the world [cosmic system] nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” James 3:15 NASB “This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic.” Human viewpoint ideas are not neutral! If it is not biblical, divine viewpoint thinking directly stated in Scripture it is demonic. James 4:4 NASB “You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world [cosmic system] is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.”

4)      The Greek KOSMOS [kosmoj] usually translated “world” describes and orderly cohesive system and organization with a purpose, policy and structure of authority designed to subvert the thinking of the human race. Satan wants to control the believer’s thinking. He wants us to think that there are all kinds of ways to solve our problems, that there are all kinds of ways to get to God. The Bible says there is only one correct way to solve problems, only one correct way to God, and that is what God has revealed in His Word.

Quote from Louis Sperry Chafer, Systrematic Theology, Vol. II, pp. 77, 78:  The cosmos is a vast order or system that Satan has promoted, which conforms to his ideals, aims, and methods. It is civilization now functioning apart from God—a civilization in which none of its promoters really expect God to share, who assign to God no consideration in respect to their projects; nor do they ascribe any causativity to Him. This system embraces its godless governments, conflicts, armaments, jealousies, its education, culture, religions of morality, and pride. It is that sphere in which man lives. It is what he sees, what he employs. To the uncounted multitude it is all they ever know so long as they live on this earth. It is properly styled the satanic system, which phrase is in many instances a justified interpretation of the so-meaningful word, cosmos. It is literally a cosmos diabolicus.

5)      Satan’s strategy is to get the human race to think independently of Bible doctrine, independently of God, and to think man can solve his problems on his own, or at best he can just help God.

6)      In contrast to this we have the horrible status of demon possession. There are six key words we have to understand if we are going to understand what the Bible says about demon possession.

a)      DAIMONIZOMAI [daimonizomai], the present passive participle form of the noun for demon, DAIMON [daimwn]. A participle indicates a verbal adjective. A passive voice indicates that the subject is being acted upon by something else. Since it is a passive participle it just means to be acted upon by a demon. What some want to say—and this has become a standard fare among evangelicals—is that there is no real biblical distinction between demon possession and demon influence. All you have is a very broad word DAIMONIZOMAI which means to be acted upon by a demon and they will translate it to be demonised, and it is this one word, they say, that covers everything from what we would call demon influence to demon possession. They make a fundamental error. It is called an etymological fallacy, and that is to determine word meaning simply by grammar or history alone. Ultimately what determines word meaning is usage. What we will see in Luke chapter eight is that the description of a person who is said to be demonised, i.e. DAIMONIZOMAI, has had a demon inside them. The cure is for that demon to be cast out of the body. The word that is normally translated demon possession, DAIMONIZOMAI, is a general and vague term. So it is the other terms that give it specificity, that make its meaning clear. DAIMONIZOMAI does not mean simply to be acted upon by a demon, it means to be demon possessed. This word is used 13 times in the Gospels for demon possession: Matthew 4:24; 8:16, 28, 33; 9:32; 12:22; 15:22; Mark 1:32; 5:15, 16, 18; Luke 8:36.

b)      The verb ECHO [e(xw] which means to have, to hold, plus the noun DAIMON [daimwn] or DAIMONION [daimonion]. It means simply to have a demon. This phrase is used eight times in the Gospels: Matthew 11:18; Luke 7:33; 8:37; John 7:20; 8:48, 49, 52; 10:20. The Greek grammar conveys the idea that the subject of this phrase is characterized by a demon indwelling them.

c)      EN PNEUMATI AKATHARTOS [e)n pneumati a)kaqartoj]. The preposition EN, meaning with, plus the dative of possession PNEUMA = with a spirit, plus the adjective for unclean: “with an unclean spirit.” This describes the nature of the demon possession. Used in Mark 1:23; 5:2.

d)      EKBALLO [e)kballw]. This is a compound word, the main verb is BALLO, and the preposition EK means “out of.” So it comes to mean to cast out, to throw out. Some of these words are used of Jesus when He goes into the temple. He enters the temple [e)rxomai] and He cast out [e)kballw] the money changers. So we see an interesting picture there of what Jesus does in demon possession. He casts out a demon. In order to cast a demon out of a person the demon has to be in the person.

e)      EXERCHOMAI [e)cerxomai]. The preposition e)c is the same as e)kballow, the preposition e)k. The verb e)rxomai means to come or to go. With the preposition e)c it means to come out, to go out. So it comes to mean to exit, to leave, to go out, to come out. Rhetorical question: If the demon is to come out or to go out, where must it be first? In the body. So DAMONIZOMAI doesn’t just mean something vague, acted upon by a demon. When Jesus cast the demon out and tells the demon to come out DAIMONIZOMAI now has precise meaning, doesn’t it? It means there is a demon in someone or something.

f)       EISERCHOMAI [e)iserxomai]—EIS means direction to or towards something; ERCHOMAI means to come or to go. So the compound word means to go into, to enter, to enter into, to move into. The thing that is important to learn about this is that when the demons come along and they are cast out of, for example, the Gadarene demoniac, it says (Luke 8:30) that “many demons had entered him.” The verb is “had entered,” an aorist active indicative. The subject of a verb in the Greek performs the action of the verb, just like in English. The subject in Greek is always in the nominative case. That tells you what performs the action. The demons perform the action of entry, EISERCHOMAI. The reason EISERCHOMAI is important is because DAIMONIZOMAI is a vague term. If that is all we have then somebody could say it just means to be acted upon by a demon, but when you have words in a demon possession narrative that have this kind of specificity, going into and coming out of, the reason that we can say that it means demon possession is because of these words.

If we go back and look at the meaning of EISERCHOMAI in classical Greek, the language used in Greece from Homer on and in the 5th century BC, it was used to describe a party or parties who would enter into a contract, a treaty, and it indicates that they are moving from outside this agreement to inside the agreement. Before the treaty they were not bound by it, they were outside. So they entered into an agreement. Xenophon used it to describe commercial transactions, money that was going from one person’s account into another person’s account. Notice, it always has this movement idea, going from outside the account to inside the account. It was used in drama to describe the action of the chorus, moving from off-stage to on-stage. Notice, from outside to inside. Plato used it this way, as did Xenophon. This developed a metaphorical or figurative use. The idea is of entrance used to convey the entry of a thought into the mind, a character quality into the soul such as “courage entered his heart.” Or the entry of a new emotion: anger. So the conclusion: the thought, the quality or the emotion is always the subject of the verb. The emotion is always in the nominative case, indicating they are the subject performing the action.

Luke 8:26-33 NASB “Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. [27] And when He came out onto the land, He was met by a man from the city who was possessed with demons [e)xwn daimonia = to have demons]; and who had not put on any clothing for a long time, and was not living in a house, but in the tombs.” If we look at the Matthew passage it talks about the country as the Gadarenes: Gadara was the town; Gerasa was the region. Apparently there were two men that came. Matthew focuses on both men, whereas Mark and Luke only focus on one man. In Matthew, instead of saying “he has a demon” [e)xw daimona] he says he was demon possessed [daimonizomai]. So there we learn by the comparison of the two accounts that daimonizomai and e)kw daimon are synonymous. In Mark we are told it was the region of the Gerasenes. He focuses on one man only and uses e)n pneumatic a)kaqartoj, an unclean spirit. Each account uses a different term to describe demon possession. Luke goes on to tell us that they were unable to bind this man with chains, that he was naked, he lived in the tombs, and he was violent. Matthew only mentions the fact that these two men lived among the tombs and that they were violent. Mark adds even more detail. He, as well as Luke, suggests that they were unable to bind him. Mark and Matthew both leave out the idea of nakedness. All three mention that he lived in the tombs, that there was violence, and Mark adds that he would ruin around screaming and gashing himself with stones. So obviously he was out of control. In demon possession the demon indwells the body and manages to override individual volitional control of bodily functions. The person is still there and can still exercise positive volition toward the gospel, but that is the only thing they can do. They can’t control their life. Ultimately to get into demon control the victim makes a series of decisions culminating in volitional surrender to the demons. But that doesn’t mean the personality is obliterated and it doesn’t mean they can’t be positive to the gospel, because that is the only solution.

In Luke, when Jesus comes up to the possessed man, the demon cries out: “What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg You, do not torment me.” He uses His whole title, he knows who Jesus is. How does Jesus address the man? Luke 8:30 “And Jesus asked him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Legion’; for many demons had entered him [EISERCHOMAI].” So more than one demon can indwell someone. [29] “For He had commanded the unclean spirit to come out [EXERCHOMAI] of the man.”

Matthew said the person was DAIMONIZOMAI, demon possessed. In 8:31 NASB “The demons {began} to entreat Him, saying, ‘If You {are going to} cast us out [EKBALLO], send us into the herd of swine.’” Again, Jesus is going to cast them out and the demons request that He send [APOSTELLO] them into the pigs. APOSTELLO is with the preposition EIS which means “into.” Mark says, “Send us into,” and he uses a different word, PEMPO [pempw]. So there is a variation which means the same thing for the same request. Luke 8:32 “Now there was a herd of many swine feeding there on the mountain; and {the demons} implored Him to permit them to enter [EISERCHOMAI] the swine. And He gave them permission.” Notice: Demons can’t operate independently of the sovereign permissive will of God. [33] “And the demons came out [e)cerxomai] of the man and entered [e)iserxomai] the swine; and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.” In the Matthew account the same terminology is used.

Demon possession means to go into; when you are relieved of the demon the demon is cast out. This is contrasted to an episode in the Old Testament. In chapter 1 Samuel 15 Saul partially obeyed the Lord. He was told to completely destroy the Amalekites in battle and he failed to do that. Samuel told him that because of his disobedience that the kingship would be taken away from him, and this was the beginning of Saul’s fall into disobedience and carnality. 1 Samuel 16:14 NASB “Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him.” The Holy Spirit leaves Saul, it was only a temporary enduement. “…an evil spirit from the LORD terrorized him” raises some interesting questions in the minds of many people, but this shows us the sovereignty of God over the demons.

1 Kings 22:5 NASB “Moreover, Jehoshaphat said to the king of Israel, “Please inquire first for the word of the LORD.” Jehoshaphat is a believer and he wants to hear what the Lord has to say. So the Ahab gathers everybody together and they all answer the same way, they’re a bunch of yes men, all the sycophants tell him, O yes, the Lord will give you victory. But Jehoshaphat sees through them all. [7] “But Jehoshaphat said, ‘Is there not yet a prophet of the LORD here that we may inquire of him?’” [8] Ahab says yes: “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the LORD, but I hate him, because he does not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. {He is} Micaiah son of Imlah. But Jehoshaphat said, ‘Let not the king say so.’” So they brought in Micaiah, and he must have a great sense of humour. [14} “But Micaiah said, ‘As the LORD lives, what the LORD says to me, that I shall speak.’” [15] His answer to the king was: “Go up and succeed, and the LORD will give {it} into the hand of the king.” He is sarcastic. Ahab sees right through it and said: “How many times must I adjure you to speak to me nothing but the truth in the name of the LORD?” That is, Quit lying like everybody else. He knows that a good word from Macaiah is not the truth. [17] So he [Macaiah] said, “I saw all Israel Scattered on the mountains, Like sheep which have no shepherd. And the LORD said, ‘These have no master. Let each of them return to his house in peace.’” He sees the armies scattered, the leadership is killed, the king is dead, and they are just wandering aimlessly. That proves Ahab’s point and he says to Jehoshaphat: “Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?” Then Macaiah gives a warning. [19] “Micaiah said, ‘Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven [angels, fallen and elect] standing by Him on His right and on His left. [20] The LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. [21] Then a spirit [demon] came forward and stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ [22] The LORD said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He [the LORD] said, ‘You are to entice {him} and also prevail. Go and do so.’”

What this is portraying is the sovereignty of God over the demons. It is one thing to say they can’t do anything without God’s permission but this tells us how that permission operates. In Proverbs it says: “God created the evil one for the day of wicked [judgment].” This shows us that nothing happens by pure random chance in God’s universe. God is in control of every detail; Jesus Christ controls history; God will bring about everything to His glory eventually. He utilizes Satan and his demons to bring about His purposes. In the same way the Lord sends a demon as part of divine discipline upon Saul in 1 Samuel 16 to terrorize Saul. 1 Samuel 16:15 NASB “Saul’s servants then said to him, ‘Behold now, an evil spirit from God is terrorizing you. [16] Let our lord now command your servants who are before you. Let them seek a man who is a skillful player on the harp; and it shall come about when the evil spirit from God is on you, that he shall play {the harp} with his hand, and you will be well.” We have just looked at some passage in the New Testament that describe demon possession. In those passages there are some very important prepositions: “in” and “out.” Do we have either of those prepositions in this passage? No, we don’t. What we have is the preposition “on.” Saul is not demon possessed; there is no demon inside of Saul. He is being acted upon from the outside by a demon with the result that it is affecting his mental state as he continues to deteriorate in reversionism. And notice the solution. The solution is not to cast the demon out of him but to play music so that it soothes him and relaxes him to counteract the effect of this oppression from the demons.

1 Samuel 16:23 NASB “So it came about whenever the {evil} spirit from God came to Saul [preposition el= to or towards ], David would take the harp and play {it} with his hand; and Saul would be refreshed and be well, and the evil spirit would depart from him.” Notice: What are the prepositions that are important? “In” and “out.” What do we find here? “On” and “to.” Saul is not demon possessed, he is demon oppressed. What we do not find in the Hebrew of any of these passages is be, which means in or into. Saul was not demon possessed and he was a believer. Samuel told Saul: 1 Samuel 28:19 NASB “Moreover the LORD will also give over Israel along with you into the hands of the Philistines, therefore tomorrow you and your sons will be with me [in Paradise, Abraham’s bosom].”

Demon Position

Demon Position RD/126b

The other thing we learn from this has something to do with the whole issue of demon possession. “ … and the evil spirits went out of them.” In the Bible, whether you are talking about the Gospels or about Acts, does not talk about disease in terms of demon possession. Liberals love to do that: “See, they are primitive, they are just attributing disease to the spirits.” The Bible always distinguishes these as two separate issues. There were some illnesses that could have been produced by demon possession but they are not attributing a superstitious cause to all illness. There are two issues here: illness and also those who are demon possessed. And what is the solution? The demons leave. It is the Greek word ekporeuomai. The work poreuo means to go or proceed; erchomai means to come or go, and poreuo is somewhat of a synonym. So he is casting out demons.

Then we get to the fun story about some of the Jewish itinerant exorcists. According to the literature I have read there seemed to be some apostate Jews who would travel through the Roman empire and would trade on the fact that they were Jewish as if it were some sort of mystical magic thing. They would have these magical incantations for healing and for casting out demons. This is technically exorcism. This is the only time this word is used in the text. The noun is exorkistes. The root verb is horkizo which means to swear or to swear an oath, or to implore someone to do something. exorkistes is where we get our word exorcism. This word is used rarely in the Bible and it is never ever used of anything that Jesus and the disciples did. They never did an exorcism; not one.

A lot of people see the word exorcism and apply it to Jesus, and the Bible doesn’t. If verbal inspiration means anything Jesus never exorcised a demon. He cast out demons. That is the term that is used again and again. And the word is ekballo which means to throw something out or to cast something out, and that is the word that that is used of the disciples and Jesus. The magical exorcists were always called by that word exorcist. That word does not refer to anything legitimate; it is just some sort of pagan magical activity.

These itinerate Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to imitate Paul. One day they saw Paul cast out a demon and heard him say “in the name of Jesus.” They thought, “He did a better and quicker job than they ever did, his incantation is better than our incantation.” The idea in paganism  is to get the name of the demon. Start talking to the demon and ask the demon to give their name. The only time that Jesus did that was in the episode with the Gadarene demoniac, and that was to show that there was more than one demon inside the demon-possessed man. It wasn’t to gain power over him because Jesus was more powerful than any demon. The idea in paganism is you have to know their name, and if you call them by their name you have power over them. It’s all about power. So these exorcists thought they would use Paul’s “incantation.” They decided they were going to call on the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits.

NASB “But also some of the Jewish exorcists, who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, ‘I adjure [horkizo] you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.’ [14] Seven sons of one Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.” The word there for chief priests is the same word as used for a high priest. There was only one high priest and he was in Jerusalem. 

There are a couple of different things that could be going on here. First of all, they could just be making a fraudulent claim. They are so involved in pagan magic that they probably were kicked out of Judea for their apostasy. Or, maybe they are from a priestly family and are just making some sort of claim because they have a family connection to the high priest. Or, they are just seeking credibility through some sort of association. We don’t really know. But theirs is not a legitimate priestly function. 

They find someone who is demon possessed and they say, “We implore you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.’” 

NASB “And the evil spirit answered and said to them, ‘I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who are you?” It has no impact on them whatsoever. The words for “know” are interesting. “Jesus I know” is ginosko. They knew who Jesus was, and epistamai is used of Paul. They were familiar with him, were aware of him. Then they said, “Who in the world are you? Why should I listen to you?” 

NASB “And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on them and subdued all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.” Notice the words “in whom.” It tells us once again that demon possession is when a demon takes up residence inside the body of someone. The word “wounded” is the Greek word traumatizo from which we get trauma, traumatize. It means they just beat the crud out of them. They run from the house naked, and so it is totally embarrassing. 

NASB “This became known to all, both Jews and Greeks, who lived in Ephesus; and fear fell upon them all and the name of the Lord Jesus was being magnified.” It becomes clear that Paul’s message is validated and attested to, even by the people who are against him. [18] “Many also of those who had believed kept coming, confessing and disclosing their practices.”

There are different terms for demons. In it is called an unclean demon. In other passages there is also the term unclean spirit. How did it get removed? The command was to come out, and it came out—exerchomai. erchomai is the Greek word that means to come our to go. The prefix is what is important. ex means to come out of; eis means to go into. So if you are going to go into a house you are going to eiserchomai. You go into the building, the house. If you go out of the house you exit—exerchomai.

In there is mention of evil spirits cast out of Mary Magdalene. They are called evil spirits and demons, and they had come out of her—exerchomai. You never see exorcist anywhere here.

starts the story of the Gadarene demoniac. There is more detail about that one so that becomes kind of a paradigm or model for understanding all the demon possession stories because it makes the vocabulary very clear. He calls the indwelling spirits demons, there is a plurality of them. It is also called a singular demon, an unclean spirit. It is said that he had a demon in the Matthew passage—he had a spirit—and it is described at the end as being demon possessed. Now we know what demon possession is. It is someone who has a demon or demons inside of them.

Then there is the language used: He was going to cast out the demon—exerchomai; the demon was going to come out of him. It had entered into him, Jesus was going to send them into the swine—eiserchomai. Then the demons went out of him and entered into the swine—exerchomai and eiserchomai. So the language is very precise.

How do we know what demon possession is? By this in and out language that is used in all of the episodes. It is very clear that a demon goes into and comes out of a person, so that is how we are able to define demon possession.   

1.          Demons refer to a class of fallen angels who invade human history to afflict the human race.

2.          The term demon is not necessarily used of all fallen angels but we could use it that way in a generic sense. It is primarily used to refer to those who are specifically afflicting the human race.

3.          There are different groups of demons. There are some today that are in the abyss. There are those that afflicted the human race in the episode with the sons of God and the daughters of men in Genesis chapter six. There are those who are reserved under the Euphrates River in Revelation chapter nine, the 200,000,000 demon army.

4.          The only period in the Bible of intense demonic activity the period of the Messiah’s ministry on the earth and the beginning stages of the church. There was a little bit around Saul. There was a demon spirit that came upon Saul—doesn’t enter him—influencing and oppressing him. So the only time of intense demonic activity is during the time of the proclamation of the kingdom in the Gospels and in Acts.

5.          The term demon possession describes the invasion of a person’s body for the purpose of control. That is seen from the terms used—cast out, ekballo; enter—eiserchomai; to go out—exerchomai and ekporeumai.  The problem is that in English possession has two meanings—to own or to occupy. A lot of people think that there is no demon possession because Satan can’t own somebody; they emphasize that aspect of it. We are not talking about ownership; we are talking about occupancy. That is the issue. There is no word per se for demon possess, it is to be acted upon by a demon. But all those others are more specific and they give us a specific meaning.

6.          Church age believers cannot be demon possessed because their bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And the word “temple” there is naos, meaning the inner sanctum, the holy of holies. And just as nothing could enter the holy of holies in the Old Testament except the high priest or they would die instantly, the same thing is true. God protects us as His immediate territory. This is seen in ; .

7.          There is no example of an Old Testament person being demon possessed. It isn’t an issue. Some might ask, well what about today? Yes, it could take place but there is nothing mentioned in the epistles about it. And the epistles were written to give church age believers everything they need to know about how to handle problems of the church. All kinds of problems are

mentioned but never demon possession. The silence is deafening. So if the New Testament ignores it then we shouldn’t get wrapped around the axles about it.

8.          Does that mean that we believe there are not problems with the demonic right now? Not at all. tells us we are involved in spiritual warfare. But the issue isn’t demon possession; the issue is demon influence. Demon influence describes the influence of demons on the inhabitants of the world system who think like Satan. To the degree that any person thinks on the basis of human viewpoint anything opposite from the Word of God, anything apart from the Word of God, any non-biblical system of thought, they are thinking on the basis of demonic influence. That means we are all influenced by the demonic to one degree or another.  

Demon Possession: Christian

What does the Scripture say about a Christian being demon possessed? RD/James/074

1)      When Christ died on the cross it was the focal point of the angelic conflict. (Everything that Satan is betting his eternal existence on is riding on the cross. He is not going to sit back and just try to influence somebody. He took over Judas specifically because this is where all of history was focused: on the cross) It is on the cross where Satan and all the demons are defeated for all time and eternity. Colossians 2:10-15 NASB “and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority; [11] and in Him you were also circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, in the removal of the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ; [12] having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised up with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. [13]  When you were dead in your transgressions and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, [14] having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us, which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. [15] When He had disarmed the rulers and authorities, He made a public display of them, having triumphed over them through Him.” The terms “rule” and “authority” are terms that refer to the hierarchy of authority in angelic creation, whether it is fallen angels or holy angels. So when it says that Jesus is the head, that is talking about authority over: He is the ruler over all angelic authorities, whether they are demonic or holy angels. It is in Him at the point of salvation when we are baptized by means of God the Holy Spirit you are identified at that instant in His death, burial, and resurrection, and are placed in Christ. At that moment everything that is Christ’s is ours. We are not bastard children to be left out on the doorstep when we are disobedient to be exposed to demon or Satanic possession. Circumcision: the cutting of the sin nature. Because of positional truth our slavery to the sin nature is broken. Here Paul uses spiritual circumcision as the analogy. “When he had disarmed the rulers and the authorities” – the entire armies of Satan. They are disarmed at the cross; He made a public display of them in the heavenlies. The point of this is that at salvation there is a permanent victory accomplished by Jesus Christ on the cross so that believers who are united with Christ by virtue of baptism by means of the Holy Spirit—identification with Christ; retroactive positional truth—everything that is Christ’s is ours. As part of this: Colossians 1:13, 14 NASB “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, [14] in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” One of the greatest problems we have is that Christians are not taught what takes place at salvation. There are 39 irrevocable assets that are given to us at salvation. When we look at the totality of what God does for each one of us at salvation it puts us ultimately in a position where we will be elevated above the angels, and God is not going to allow us to be desecrated by having our bodies invaded by a demon. Conclusion: Since Satan and his hordes are defeated and we are positionally removed from his jurisdiction he can no longer have access to indwell a child of God.

2)      At salvation we are adopted into the family of God (Galatians 4) as adult sons with all the privileges thereto, and this includes protection from demonic invasion. 1 Corinthians 3:16 says that the body of the believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes the body the residence of God the Father and God the Son so that the entire Trinity dwells bodily inside every single believer. This protects us from any sort of invasion. John 4:4 NASB “…greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” Luke 11:24: The context here is that the Jews have rejected the sign that Jesus has given them, His messianic credentials of casting out demons. They had accused Him of casting out demons by the power of Beelzebub, the ruler of the demons.  NASB “When the unclean spirit [pneuma a)kaqartoj] goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and not finding any, it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came.’ [25] And when it comes, it finds it swept and put in order [personal, moral reformation, not spiritual regeneration]. [26] Then it goes and takes {along} seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first.” The point is that when the believer has the Holy Spirit indwelling him it is not a place that has been simply swept out and in order, it has been regenerated; and when it is, it is not empty.

3)      Jesus’ continual intercession for the believer is recorded in John 17:15 in His high priestly prayer: NASB “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil {one.}” Since Jesus always prays consistently according to the will of the Father then God always answers His prayers.

4)      There is not one single biblical example of a believer being demon possessed. Examples that people usually go to are a) Saul in the Old Testament; b) Judas in the New Testament.

5)      The sufficiency of Scripture indicates only that God has given us all we need to know related to the spiritual life. 2 Peter 1:3 NASB “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” There is no category that is excluded: “has granted to us everything.” If the epistles are written so that believers can know everything they need to know for the spiritual life, and the epistles never mention demon possession and how to get rid of a demon who is possessing a believer, the only conclusion we can draw from it is that it is not an issue. Listen to the statistics: The Greek word for demon, DAIMONION [daimonion] and its related words, all the other words used to speak about demons, are used 77 times in the New Testament. Sixty-seven times they are found in the four Gospels, three times in Revelation, and seven times in the epistles. Where is the emphasis in the Scriptures? It was at the time when Christ came on the earth. In the focal point of all the angelic conflict He stirred all then demons up. There is very little mention in the sections of the New Testament designed to teach believers about the spiritual life. The issue is not to be concerned about attacks from Satan or demons but what is the provision of God. Whether the problem is inside from the sin nature, externally through Satan’s cosmic system, or through demons, the solution is always the same: learn doctrine; assimilate doctrine; apply doctrine. That is what it means to resist the devil.

Believers who get into deliverance ministries and get out there thinking they can cast out demons and all of this other stuff that has no biblical authorization whatsoever are totally exposed and are going to destroy their spiritual lives. When we are in carnality, in disobedience to God’s Word, then we are not in the fortress of the stress-busters, not in God’s protective plan, not using the armour of God, and we are going to be defeated spiritually over and over again.  

Devotion and Respect

Devotion and Respect    RD/James/023

The two aspects of enduring devotion and respect are united in our personal love for God. In terms of human relationships, especially in marriage, they are separated. They are distinguished in terms of human marriage. There is a distinction made between enduring devotion and aggressive love on the one hand, and responding love which is respect or fear, on the other hand. We see this in Ephesians 5:33 NASB “Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must {see to it} that she respects her husband.”

The greater our respect for God the less we are willing to disappoint God. The only way we develop respect for God is by learning His Word and all that He has done for us. So what are the characteristics?

1)      It is responding. This is the fear and awe as a responding love. God initiates; we respond. That is the corresponding act on our part. It is based on a continuous and deepening understanding of all that God has done for us, both in terms of our salvation and spiritual life. The more we know, the more we respond.

2)      There is deference. This means that we submit to His judgments, to the revelation of His will in terms of divine viewpoint, and to the mandates of Scripture. When there is conflict between our thinking and God’s thinking we defer to Him, we submit to His judgment.

3)      There is admiration. We come to know what Christ has done for us and we become awed by the complexity and the wonder of God’s magnificent plan. We admire Him more and more because of all that He has done and accomplished on our behalf.

4)      Honor. In response to His humility we admire Him and we honor Him. We seek to bestow glory on God who has performed so much on our behalf.

5)      Esteem. Esteem is defined as elevating God to a high level of prestige and priority in our life. He becomes the priority in our life. We begin to change the way we do things, the way we spend our time, the way we spend our money, how we use our talents. We begin to transform them so that the priority becomes God and because we esteem Him so highly that we are going to use our time, our talents, and our treasure on His behalf.

6)      Consideration. We give Him first consideration in all that we do. Consideration includes the idea of careful, thoughtful concern and deliberation based on God’s desires for our life. This is what the Bible means by meditation. Meditation means that you don’t just think about doctrine when you come to Bible class. It means when you go home, when you are driving places, when you are at home and you take time to study and reflect over your notes. How do these things apply to me? It is focussing thinking, letting these ideas and doctrines sift through your mind, renovating your thinking.

7)      Partiality. This is the idea that you are partial to God. It indicates a special fondness or bias in favour of the object of personal love. Therefore God’s plan is always given preference in our lives.

Difference between an Apostle and a Prophet

The Difference between an Apostle and a Prophet

RD/1 Cor. 079

1)      They’re both foundational to the church, the body of Christ. Ephesians 2:20 NASB “having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner {stone}.” That says something because if these gifts are foundational then you don’t build the foundation on every floor as construct the building. That foundation is laid once and it under girds the entire structure. So this is a strong argument for both the temporary nature of the apostles and the prophet. That is going to indicate that there are some gifts that are not permanent through the church age.

2)      Both the apostle and the prophet received special revelation and predicted the future. They are distinguished in Ephesians 2:20.

3)      The ministry of the apostle was to the church at large, whereas the prophet had a ministry that was mostly to local congregations. He was geographically restricted.

4)      The specific job description of the apostle and the prophet was to provide edification to the body of Christ by exhorting and comforting the saints through special revelation given to them. So there is a similarity. 1 Corinthians 14:3; 29, 30; Ephesians 4:8-12.

5)      These predictions included local specific time-bound revelations that were not included in Scripture. Even in the Old Testament not everything a prophet said had universal application and needed to be put down for subsequent generations.

6)      A key element in prophecy was that it predicted future happenings. Acts 11:27, 28; 21:10, 11; 1 Timothy 1:18; Revelation 1:3.

As a result of this there were many false prophets coming along in the early church. 1 John 4:1 warns that many false prophets have gone out into the world. There is so much confusion related to this spiritual gift of prophecy that it is related to preaching, but it is not; it has to do with special revelation and prediction.

Difference between the Rapture and the Second Coming

Differences between the Rapture and the Second Coming                    RD/Rev.  077b

1)      At the Rapture there is a translation of all believers, and instantaneous translation that takes place in the twinkling of an eye. At the Second Coming of Christ to the earth there is no translation of saints. There is no event that takes place at that point where the Tribulation believers receive their resurrection bodies. Those who die during the Tribulation receive their resurrection bodies but those who are alive at the end of the Tribulation go right on into the Millennial kingdom to repopulate the earth in their mortal bodies.

2)      At the Rapture translated saints go with Jesus to heaven. John 14:1-3. But at the Second Coming translated saints are returning with Jesus to the earth.

3)      At the Rapture earth is not judged, but at the Second Coming the earth is judged and righteousness is established. This is the separation of the sheep and the goats.

4)      The Rapture is an imminent, any moment event. Nothing has to happen before the Rapture occurs. The Second Coming follows definite specifically predicted signs indicated in passages such as Matthew 24, and it can only come after a seven-year period of the Tribulation.

5)      The Rapture is not predicted in the Old Testament but the Second Coming of Christ to the earth to establish His kingdom is predicted in numerous passages on the Old Testament.

6)      The Rapture is for believers only, those who are in Christ, according to 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18; but the Second Coming will affect all mankind.

7)      The Rapture occurs before the day of wrath, whereas the Second Coming concludes the day of wrath.

8)      At the Rapture there is no reference to Satan whatsoever. At the Second Coming we are told that Satan will be bound for 1000 years. He will not be able to influence history at all during the Millennial kingdom.

9)      At the Rapture Jesus Christ comes for His own; at the Second coming He comes with His own.

10)   Christ comes in the clouds at the Rapture; he comes to the earth at the Second Coming.

11)   Christ claims His bride at the Rapture but he comes with His bride at the Second Coming. The wedding feast has taken place in heaven, there has to be time for that.

12)   Only His own see Him at the Rapture but every eye will see Him at the Second Coming.

13)   After the Rapture the Tribulation begins, but after the Second Coming the Messianic kingdom begins.

Another reason there must be a distinction between the Rapture and the Second Coming is because certain things have to happen during that interval. The Rapture can’t happen right up against the Second Coming because there are a number of things that transpire between these two events. 

1)      The worship of God in the heavens by the 24 elders who represent the church during this period of the Tribulation. Revelation chapters 4 & 5.

2)      At the same time there is the judgment seat of Christ, the judgment of all church age believers.

3)      The marriage supper of the Lamb takes place in the heavenlies prior to the return of Christ.

So there has to be a time gap here to allow all of these things to take place.

Dispensation, Six Characteristics of a

Six Characteristics of a Dispensation.  RD/Heb/098b

   1. First of all in every dispensation, God is the one to whom men are responsible in discharging their responsibility.  God is the one in charge so that in each dispensation man is accountable to God for something.

   2. Faithfulness is required of those to whom a dispensational responsibility is committed.  In I Corinthians 4:2 Paul says it is required of a steward (that is the same word, different form of the word for oikonomos or  oikonomia) that faithfulness is required of a steward.  That is a great passage for pastors.  Faithfulness is what God is going to evaluate a pastor on - not the size of the congregation, not how big the choir was, not the building program size or any of those things.  It is faithfulness to the Word.

That leads me to the quote of the week.  This is from a Southern Baptist pastor here in town.  When he was talking with an assistant pastor of his who has been meeting with me for some time, they got into a discussion over a passage in Proverbs.

So the young man who has been meeting with me said, “I wonder what the Hebrew says.”

To which the Southern Baptist pastor replied (something to the effect that) “Only an idiot goes to the Hebrew to find out what the Bible says.”

That’s the quote of the week.

So pastors are to be faithful to the Word – faithful to the Word.

   3. Dispensations are connected to mysteries in the New Testament.  Mysteries are new revelation.  So revelation is essential to understanding a dispensation. It’s not just a time thing.  It is that God is giving additional information.  That additional information implies new responsibilities or accountability.  Therefore the administration is changing.   

   4. The term dispensation and age are connected ideas, but they are not the same and they are not interchangeable.

   5. So sometimes we talk about the Age of Israel, but the Age of Israel is really composed of two different dispensations.  There is a revelation shift that occurs with the giving of the Mosaic Law.  At the time of Abraham (the call of Abraham), the giving of the Abrahamic Covenant is a dispensational shift from God working through Gentiles to God working through Jews.  He is never going to work through Gentiles again after Genesis 12.  So there is a major shift that occurs there.  Then you have the Mosaic Covenant and there is another shift that takes place.  So when God begins to call out Israel in Genesis 12, the Age of Israel goes from Genesis 12 to the cross, but it is really divided into two dispensations based on revelation. So a dispensation occurs within an age.  But, sometimes age and dispensation can be identical.  We live in the Church Age.  It is also a dispensation.  It begins and ends at the same time.  They can overlap or a dispensation can be a smaller part of an age.

   6. God has clearly demarcated certain chronological divisions in human history.  Let me just give you a couple of examples.

Distractions

Distractions to the Spiritual Life; Worry RD/2 John 013

   1. Distraction is always the result of arrogance. Arrogance is putting its emphasis on self. Remember, there are four arrogance skills: a) Self-absorption, where we begin to put our eyes on self. Once we begin to focus on self and whatever we want, then the next step is that we begin to get into our desires, whatever it is that we are absorbed with, and this leads to b) self-indulgence; c) self-justification—we need to justify our self-absorption and self-indulgence. Self-justification leads to d) self-deception, where we have generated our own view of reality, our own view of the world that revolves around our own impressions of life and whatever impresses us about life. So all distractions begin with self-absorption with our eyes on self rather than our eyes on God, and as soon as our eyes start to focus on self and self-absorption then we become the centre of life rather than God as the creator.    2. When we are arrogant and self-absorbed we become more concerned with what impresses us than what impresses God. We become more impressed with what stimulates us than with the Word of God. We become impressed with our own emotional stimulation and achieving that emotional stimulation becomes more important than doctrine. Others become more impressed with pleasures than they are with doctrine. Others become more impressed with psychological stimulation than they are with doctrine.    3. Whenever there is an emphasis on self that is the gateway into worldly thinking. The Scripture says that we are to do away with worldly thinking and we are to be conformed to the thinking of Christ. When we get into worldly thinking it always leads to fragmentation of the soul. Any system that is not based on the Word of God is ultimately going to lead to failure in life and misery.    4. Human viewpoint or the cosmic system always has a substitute saviour, a substitute Messiah or Redeemer—something, someone, is going to provide that real happiness and stimulation.    5. The cosmic system, human viewpoint, always starts with a shift to arrogance and reliance upon self.

The problem of emotion as a distraction to doctrine

The problem with emotion is when we get into emotional sins such as fear and worry and anxiety. Problems with these mental attitude sins have their roots, as with many other mental attitude sins, in the idea that somehow we can control that which seems to be threatening our security. That is one of the greatest of deceptions of arrogance: the idea that we can control our security. Our security is totally in the hands of God. He is the one who has numbered the hairs on our head. He has already from eternity past determined the time, the manner, and the place of our death. There is nothing that we can do to alter that, it has been determined before hand in the counsel of God. There are many things in life where our volition has an impact. Our volition can determine whether we are happy or whether we are miserable, whether we will spend eternity in heaven or not. Our volition is going to determine what we do with the spiritual life that God has given us. There are many things in life where our volition is going to play a part, but our volition has nothing to do with the time, the manner, and the place of our death.

Divine Discipline

There are three stages of divine discipline.  RD/Judges 007

1. There is warning discipline which encourages the believer to recover.

2. There is intensive discipline which encourages the believer to get out of reversionism.

3. Then there is dying discipline which is the final stage of the sin unto death when the believer has failed so miserably that God decides to take them out early and remove them from the planet

Divine Institution

Five Divine Institution RD/1Peter/069

1 First of all, individual responsibility, and there’s an authority there. Every individual is responsible to God for the decisions they make.

2 The second divine institution is marriage. The authority is the husband.

3 The third divine institution is the family. The authority is the parents.

PRE-FALL

Designed to promote productivity, and advance civilization

4 The fourth divine institution is human government. Depending upon the form of government—the executive branch, the king, the dictator—whoever it is that’s the person who is in charge.

5 The fifth is the nations. Each nation is accountable to God. We see that in passages like

POST-FALL

Designed to restrain evil

Divine Institutions

Divine Institutions RD/Gen/100a

A divine institution is a social structure that God has established for the safety, security, perpetuation and stability of the human race.

The first divine institution is individual responsibility. Man is accountable to God, but what happens when man rejects God to whom do they then become accountable? They become accountable to whoever has the power to enforce whatever rules and laws there might be. That is called tyranny. So once there is a breakdown in individual responsibility man becomes subordinate to strong men, tyrants, despots, and that is really what there was after the flood when some of the most tyrannical leaders in human history developed in terms of the divine kings of Egypt and the kings of the Mesopotamian empires. These were men who were much more tyrannical and despotic than any of the despots of our era.

The second divine institution is marriage. The husband is the leader in the home. When that is perverted the home breaks down. The home is the institution in which values are perpetuated to the next generation. They are taught, they are handed down; parents discipline a child.

The third divine institution is the family where the parents are the authority.

These three divine institutions were all established before the fall, and they are what breaks down when we get into Sodom. There is no individual responsibility to God, there is no accountability to anybody, so we can do whatever we want to with our own bodies and with our culture. So marriage then becomes perverted resulting into all sorts of sexual sin and perversion. Then, third, the family breaks down once the marriage breaks down and as a result of this the whole society just becomes fragmented.

The fourth divine institution is governing judicial authority. God established with the Noahic covenant when He delegated the authority to take human life when someone has committed murder. That is such a tremendous responsibility that all other legal action flows from that. When man has the responsibility to take the life of another human being because they have committed murder then man has the right to execute justice and judgment in all lesser areas. So we have the delegation of judicial authority and that becomes the basis for human government.

The fifth divine institution comes out of the tower of Babel, which is when God divides the languages, divides man into various tribal groups, and it is that distinction that becomes nations. That is important for the perpetuation of the human race, and the ultimate authority there is back to God because God is the one who governs history. That is what we see in the breakdown in Sodom and Gomorrah: God is going to intervene because all the divine institutions have broken down and He is going to take them out as a national entity.

Divine Institutions, The

The divine institutions     RD/Gen 026  RD/John 087

   1. Individual responsibility. We are responsible and accountable for our own actions no matter what they might be, no matter what the environmental pressures might be, what the genetic pressures might be. Everyone has freedom to succeed or freedom to fail. Freedom is very important because without freedom there is no way to move forward in the spiritual life. Freedom includes the right to privacy, to make your own decisions and to suffer your own consequences for both success and failure. To the degree that we lose privacy to that degree we lose freedom.

   2.  Marriage, which is the stabilizer in society. It was instituted in the Garden of Eden and designed to be between one man and one woman. It was not designed to be between members of the same sex. It provides stability for the home life so that children can grow up in an environment where there is a measure of security through their developmental years and to develop a measure of stability in their lives so that that can be productive as adults.

   3. The family.

   4. Human government, which was established in the Noahic covenant at the conclusion of the flood when God delegated the responsibility of judicial decisions for capital punishment. National distinctions were established at the tower of Babel when God divided the race through languages—the division into people groups and tribes and nations. Whenever nations begin to expand and become an empire they begin to dominate other groups, they always take on messianic complexes, much like they did the tower of Babel. There is a theological reason for why they built the tower of Babel. They wanted to assert their independence from God, it was cosmic thinking. They were not going to obey God and scatter and fill the earth but instead stay in one place and build this tower so they wouldn’t be scattered. They were taking a position against God, so it was arrogance independence from and hostility to God. That is worldliness. The parallel today is the United Nations which is nothing more than a modern example of the tower of Babel and the attempt to unite mankind internationally against God. The purpose of government is to protect the personal rights and freedoms of the citizen. It is fundamentally to restrain evil and criminality within a nation through a police force and to protect the nation from an external enemy through a strong military. It is not the purpose of government to provide security. God defines the purpose of government, not man. As soon as we look to man to define the purpose of government it is sociology, and the collective opinions of man as the basis for the function of government is the sphere of cosmic thinking.

Divine Love

Divine love: 1 John 4:16 NASB “  RD/Gal/015

…God is love…” This is the most profound statement in Scripture which summarises all of the divine character in one attribute. How does divine love fit within the complex of righteousness and justice? If righteousness is the standard and justice is the application, then love is the motivator. Love is the motivation of divine integrity. John 3:16 NASB “For God so loved the world, that He gave…” What is it that motivated God’s action in giving His unique Son for salvation? It is love. It is clear in that passage that it is a certain kind of love, but it is God’s character and His love that is the motivation. Romans 5:8 NASB “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” So if we go back and look at the integrity formula that we are building we will say: What the righteousness of God demands the justice of God executes through the love of God and is expressed by His grace. Therefore what the righteousness of God approves the justice of God provides through the grace of God, namely the full blessing of God as a love-grace gift to the believer. What the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns, but always in the love of God so that the divine solution is then provided through the grace of God.

Grace is the policy of God in dealing with mankind. In stating our formula in its full form we see the four aspects are: the righteousness of God, the justice of God and the love of God comprising the integrity of God, and then its expression through grace which is the policy of God.

1.       Divine love is infinitely superior to human love. They are analogous but they must not be confused. Analogous describes the human conception of love. There is human love and there is divine love but there are certain overlapping points of identity but there is much that is dissimilar. An analogy is a comparison but there has to be some point of similarity for that comparison to be real. There is a point of analogy but there are vast differences between human love and divine love.

2.       Human love is sentimental, emotional, superficial and constantly changing. Human emotion is by definition unstable and shifting.

3.       Divine love is eternal and immutable based on God’s perfect righteousness and totally devoid of emotion. God cannot, will not, and never does, fall in love; His love never changes.

4.       God is independent, therefore none of God’s attributes depend upon any creature for their fulfilment. In His Trinitarian existence God has eternal and perfectly righteous objects for His love and is eternally satisfied in those relationships. So God does not create man in order to have an object for His love.

5.       God is eternal, therefore His love demands an eternal object.

6.       Divine love has as its eternal o0bject each member of the Trinity.

God’s love and creatures: If God’s love is superior to human love and God’s love is based on His absolute righteousness how can God love sinful creatures? 

1.       When God first created man Adam and Eve were both +R (perfect righteousness). God created man in His image, which means that man was created in perfection. He was perfect righteousness and therefore was compatible with God’s perfect righteousness; they could have a perfect relationship. Therefore God can love him. Divine love in this case is personal because there is something of value in the object of love. In personal love the object has some attraction to the subject. “I love you” because there is something that is attractive to me and that meet my standards. So that the standard of God, which is His righteousness, approved the righteousness in Adam and Eve so that the justice of God could bless them through the love of God. In fact, in the garden of Eden justice is not an issue at all because of the perfect compatibility of man with God (+R with +R). The only place we see justice functioning in the garden has to do with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God hangs His justice out there on a tree and says they can eat from any tree in the garden except for one: “On the day you eat of that you will certainly die,” a very emphatic expression in the Hebrew. When they ate of the tree they were immediately separated from God; they were –R; God was +R; there could no longer be a relationship between God and man.

2.       +R can only love +R. This is personal love from God for a creature who possessed +R.

3.       Personal love is that category of love that is selective, conditional and dependent upon the appeal or merit of the person loved. In God personal love is always virtuous because God has perfect integrity. In man personal love is not virtuous because man does not possess perfect integrity. If God can’t love man with personal love now because man possesses –R, how can God love man? By means of unconditional or impersonal love. If the object has no value or compatibility then instead of basing the love on the character or merit of the object the love must be based exclusively on the character, merit and integrity of the person doing the loving. “I love you” in this sense means “I love you regardless of what you do because my love is not conditioned on anything you do, my love is based on the stability of my own character. So when God says “I love you” to the unbeliever who possesses negative righteousness it is not based on any appeal, any merit, ant value in the person being loved. Nothing about any of us is attractive to God. We are all sinners; we all fall short of the glory of God. Therefore by nature we are all obnoxious and repugnant to the character of God. We will never understand grace if we think that there is something in us that causes God to love us personally. Impersonal love keeps the highest and best for the person loved regardless of likes, dislikes, attraction, repulsion, knowledge, lack of knowledge, or any other factor other than the virtue and integrity of the person loving. One characteristic of impersonal love is that it is stable, unchanging. Therefore for impersonal love to truly function it must be based on something that is unchanging and immutable. Frankly, that is not our character. So how in the world can we exercise impersonal love? We have to go back to our model. Divine impersonal love is based on the perfect virtue and absolute integrity of God. So human impersonal love must be based on who God is and what Christ has done on the cross. That is what we see in Ephesians 4:32. In Scripture forgiveness is always based on the fact that a payment has been made, that the sin has been recognised and dealt with.

4.       Prior to the fall God could love man personally because there was complete compatibility and rapport between perfect God and perfect man.

5.       But after Adam sinned and lost +R there was no longer any rapport or compatibility between God and man. This God’s personal love was replaced by impersonal or unconditional love. God’s impersonal love becomes the basis for God’s actions toward man which are expressed through His grace. So all of God grace policies toward man after the fall is based on who He is and what Christ has done for us on the cross.

6.       With the loss of rapport with God the divine love was no longer the point of contact with man. The point of contact between man and God now becomes divine justice. Divine justice has to be satisfied before God can personally love man again. He can only relate to man on the basis of impersonal love, He cannot have personal love with man.    

7.       With the loss of rapport with God divine love was no longer the point of contact between man and God.

8.        Therefore the love of God express toward sinful, fallen, unregenerate mankind is impersonal and unconditional. John 3:16—impersonal love in God emphasises the perfect and absolute qualities of God rather than the failures of man. Divine impersonal love does not require compatibility, intimacy, friendliness or attraction with man in order to be sustained; it is based solely and exclusively on the stability of God’s own character.

9.       Once a person is regenerate then God loves him personally because now it is based on the imputed righteousness of Christ.

10.   In the post-fall world (since Adam’s fall) justice always precedes love. God’s justice has to be satisfied before His personal love is free to be exercised on our behalf. As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ and because we have the imputed righteousness of Christ we are the beneficiaries of God’s personal love and we can have harmonious rapport with God in the spiritual life. After salvation His love becomes our point of reference.

11.   Because divine justice is satisfied man can have a relationship with God. Justice precedes love. Love motivates but justice has to be satisfied before God can exercise personal love towards man.

12.   This also means that God is never impressed with our good deeds. The issue is not our works. After salvation we can never earn divine approval or blessing; we already have it. It is ours at the moment of salvation because we possess the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. So then we are able to say that what the righteousness of God approves the justice of God blesses through the love of God and expressed through the grace of God.

Divorce

Divorce:Summary of what the Scripture teaches in this area Matthew 031b

1.          In the Gospel passages Jesus is addressing the problem of superficial application of the Law by the Pharisees in the matter of divorce. He is not giving an exhaustive treatment on the topic of marriage and divorce.

2.          He is addressing a problem that is common to history. Human beings want to minimize the lifetime commitment between one man and one woman in order to make marriage and remarriage more convenient and to legitimize their lust patterns. Jesus said the standard is one man and one woman together for life.

3.          God recognizes that because of sin and the hardness of our heart that there are situations and circumstances where a divorce legitimate. In Jesus clearly affirms the standard of God is a lifetime monogamous commitment.

4.          However, the exception clause recognizes the reality of sin. I believe that based on Jesus' teaching here and Paul's teaching in , that divorce is permissible for several reasons, including sexual sin, desertion, abuse, and some forms of criminality. Divorce does not necessarily entail the right to remarry. The right to remarry occurs if the cause for the divorce is sexual immorality or desertion. There are other reasons where it may be the right thing to do to divorce. Sometimes we say the right thing to do is to separate but in terms of certain state laws that have common property rights, for financial reasons there is no such thing as having a legal separation. The preferred solution is through reconciliation.

Doctrinal Orientation

Doctrinal Orientation to Doctrine       RD/Kings 026

• Aligning our thinking to the reality of God’s Word, creation, and plan.

• Doctrine must become a way of life, not just something else we do.

• Doctrine includes the entire realm of Biblical teaching, from the abstract to the intensely practical.

• Doctrine teaches us how to think, how to react, how to problem solve, how to prioritize, how to relate to the world, the systems, the people, and the circumstances of life.

2 Pet. 3:18, “But grow [by means of] the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

Rom. 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

Dreams

Dreams                        RD/Kings 021b

These dreams contained rational content, discourse from God that can be analysed, studied, and broken down so that we can understand precisely and exactly what He said.

 (1) The word “dream” is from a Hebrew word that means vision. Another word means to see, and it indicates that God is revealing Himself in some way. Another word refers to a revelatory message. None of these words can be distinguished from one another. In some cases they are used interchangeably.

(2) Dreams generally take place at night when asleep; visions generally take place during the daytime when awake and somehow God would reveal something that they would see, much as John does on the Isle of Patmos.

(3) There are two categories of divine revelation that we must understand. The first category is general revelation which refers to non-verbal, non-specific, non-directive revelation. Psalm 19:1 NASB “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” There is no real content there but there is evidence of something, it just says something by its very presence. So you can’t develop theology based on general revelation. Special revelation, which is the second category, must always interpret general revelation. For example, we can’t go to things from nature and derive patterns and principles just on the basis of creation. It is only through revelation that God enables us to actively used examples. There are examples we can use from nature and ones we can’t. E.g. an ant is a pattern for good work and consistent labour in the book of Proverbs. But the ant is not used as a pattern for family life because there is a queen and lots of males, and that’s it. The Bible never uses that, so special revelation always has to tell us how to use general revelation, how to interpret general revelation. In and of itself general revelation is not sufficient. It is sufficient for one thing and that is to show that God exists, Romans 1, and it is enough information to hold men accountable for the knowledge of His existence.

We have to understand these two categories because when we are talking about God revealing Himself through impressions, through intuition, through dreams, visions, anything like that, then we recognise that that is special revelation. It is not general revelation because we recognise that there is some sort of specificity that is being communicated. Scripture is very clear that special revelation is ended, there is no ongoing special revelation; God Has closed the canon. The challenge is to live on the basis of what God has revealed without needing the tantalising and titillating emotions of having the ongoing experiences with God. The issue is to rest on and study His Word.

(4) Several Gentiles have revelatory dreams in the Old Testament. God doesn’t just reveal Himself to Jews and He doesn’t just reveal Himself to believers. He revealed Himself to Abimelech in Genesis 20, to the butler and the baker in Genesis 40, to the Pharaoh in Genesis 41, to a Midianite soldier and Gideon eavesdrops on the conversation in Judges 7:13, to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2 & 4. But in every case a Jew had to be there to properly interpret that revelation because from Genesis 12 on the Jew became the custodian of divine revelation. 

(5) God affirms that he speaks through dreams and visions as the normal approach to revelation in the Old Testament, but with Moses He addressed him in a more direct personal manner. Numbers 12:6-8 NASB “He said, ‘Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, shall make Myself known to him in a vision. I shall speak with him in a dream. Not so, with My servant Moses, He is faithful in all My household, With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant, against Moses?’”

(6) In the Law God provides quality control for dreams and visions. Deuteronomy 13:1-3  (a) NASB “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true, concerning which he spoke to you, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods (whom you have not known) and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams; for the LORD your God is testing you to find out if you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.” (b) A second area of testing is in Deuteronomy 18 concerning a prophet who claims things will come true and they don’t come to pass, and God says prophets are going to have a one hundred per cent reliability there.

(7) Visions are given to a variety of prophets in the Old Testament: Nathan in relationship to David, other visions given to prophets such as Iddo at the time of Jereboam, Zechariah, Isaiah, etc. Every one of their prophecies, when God speaks to them through dreams and visions, relate to Israel’s history; they never relate to the trivial day-to-day details of people’s lives.

(8) There are only four dreams that communicate after Law is revealed, dreams are primarily before. The four are the passage in 1 Kings 9 and 2 Chronicles 7, Judges 7:13, 1 Kings 3 when God appears to Solomon the first time, 1 Kings 3 second time in 1 Kings 9, and the fourth to Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 2. However, there is the implication in the text that there were other dreams that were not recorded in history.

(9) The dreams always relate to God’s plan for history and the outworking of the Abrahamic covenant.

(10) In the New Testament dreams are primarily associated with the birth of Christ and the announcement of His birth, related to Mary, related to the Magi, related to Joseph being warned. Later on Pilate’s wife has a dream but that is probably not supernatural revelation but closer to what we think of as intuition today.

The term “vision” is used twelve times in the New Testament. It refers to the transfiguration of Jesus, Saul of Tarsus is given a vision, Peter has a vision in Acts 10, Paul’s Macedonian vision, then the Lord came him a vision encouraging him to stay in Corinth in Acts 18.

Four conclusions:

 a) Dreams and visions were to communicate when there was no canon of Scripture;

 b) Dreams and visions were never designed to communicate personal information, personal guidance or trivial data. They are given to give a representative of the covenant community guidance in terms of his ministry, not in terms of his personal life;

c) dreams are common to everyone but we don’t use that as a system for guidance. When we evaluate the dreams of the Bible they don’t relate to personal issues, they relater to God’s plan and purposes for Israel;

d) dreams and visions should not be confused with intuition.

Eating and Drinking

Eating and Drinking   RD/John 081

1. This is imagery, He is not talking literally. He uses the eating and drinking metaphor because every single person can do that. Everyone can eat and drink, these are non-meritorious activities that anyone can perform. They are a means to an end and are used to signify something specifically.

   2. Eating and drinking need to accept something. We accept something into our body, our system. Eating and drinking need to appropriate something. In the initial act of salvation it refers to that initial act of being nourished by our Lord at the point of faith alone in Christ alone. Jesus is referring in 6:56 to faith in Christ at salvation. Cf. verse 53, aorist active subjunctive. The aorist tense summarizes everything as one event, a specific decision. The subjunctive mood is potential. The indicative mood is reality. It depends upon volition whether or not one will eat or drink. The eating and drinking refer to that point in time when you trust Christ as saviour. But down in verse 56 eating and drinking are no longer in the aorist subjunctive, they become present participles: indicating continuous action. So verse 56 is talking about continual nourishment on Christ as necessary for spiritual growth; verse 53 focuses on that initial nourishment at the point of trust in Christ as saviour.

   3. Eating and drinking are present active participles in verse 56, whereas the verb MENO in verse 56, to abide, is a present active indicative.

   4. John 6:53 describes through the use of the aorist active subjunctive the initial appropriation of eternal life.

   5. If we put that together we come to the conclusion that John 6:56 uses the present active participle to indicate continuous action. So Jesus is saying, “Whoever continues to be nourished by me stays [MENO], remains in close fellowship to me.” If “abide” means to believe, as some people argue it does, then we have a redundancy in verse 56. It would make the verse say, He who accepts Christ as saviour accepts Christ as saviour.

6.   If eating and drinking describe the metaphor belief then MENO must mean something beyond initial saving faith. Therefore faith cannot be equated to remaining. Faith is not the same thing. MENO doesn’t mean to believe, to accept Christ as saviour.

7.   Even though someone believes in Christ and currently maintains a close relationship with Him the indication here is that the potential remains to discontinue that fellowship. If true belief prevented breaking fellowship there would be no need to command them to abide. People are commanded to abide only if the potential is there to break fellowship and stop abiding.

8.    A believer remains in Christ’s love by obeying commandments—such as abide in Christ. If abide means to accept Christ as saviour the conclusion is that salvation would be by works, because in John 15:9, 10 Jesus is saying that “the one who loves Me keeps my commandments.”

   9. If abide means to believe then Jesus’ statement in 15:5 becomes absurd. It would then be read as (changing “abide” to “believe”): “he who believes in me, and I [believe] in him.” Why would Jesus want to believe in him? Abide means relationship, fellowship; not salvation.

So when we look at this we see that the substance of John 15 is how the believer is to have a life of fellowship, and the importance of that life of fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. What, then, are the conditions for fellowship with Christ? First of all one has to enter into union with Christ—faith alone in Christ alone. We initiate salvation and begin that salvation in fellowship with the Lord. But we can break fellowship through sin. Sin grieves the Holy Spirit and quenches the Holy Spirit, so that restoration to fellowship is through 1 John 1:9.

Another characteristic of fellowship with the Lord and abiding is the continuous application of the new commandment: the believer is to “love one another.” 1 John 2:10—fellowship is related to the application of impersonal love or unconditional love for all mankind.

Another is walking in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit following the precedent set by the humanity of the Lord Jesus Christ. 1 John 2:6; 1:7; Ephesians 5:8.

Another is having our minds saturated with the Word of God—1 John 2:14, “the Word of God abides in you.” That is the key. There has to be a relationship with the Word of God continuously.

1 John 3:24—the one who keeps His commandments abides in Him. So fellowship is related to continuous obedience.

The one who abides does not depart from the doctrine taught from the beginning. 1 John 2:24—“Let that abide in you which you heard from the beginning.” That is the doctrine of the New Testament.

Abiding is fellowship. “Every branch that is in Me,” i.e. every believer that continues in fellowship, who wants to have a relationship with me, “but does not bear fruit, He takes away.” He’s going to lift it up. God is going to work in the believer’s life to produce fruit; “every branch that does bear fruit [grows to maturity and produces], He prunes it, that it may bear more fruit”—through discipline, through suffering, through adversity. The pruning is so that it puts all of its energy into fruit bearing and isn’t distracted by other things. We get distracted in life with all kinds of wonderful things to do in life, but God wants to prune us and get the focus on the purpose for which He saved us, which is to bear fruit.

Eight Biblical Covenants

 Eight Biblical Covenants   RD/Heb. 112c

The first three covenants are gentile covenants.

  A gentile is anyone who is not a Jew.  Some people don’t understand that.  To me it’s a statement of the obvious, but the Bible looks at two people.  You have Jews and you have gentiles - Jews and everybody else. So, in some sense God favors one race because He has a plan and purpose for those particular people.  We live in an era today when one of the most horrible things you can be called is a racist.   That is if you operate on human viewpoint.  So when anybody is going to favor any group simply on the basis of race, that is racism and that automatically makes it evil.  See how that has blasphemous implications.  God favors Israel; they are the apple of His eye.  He favors the Jews above all people - not that they are perfect but because He has a plan.  His redemptive and revelatory plan operates through Israel.

But the first covenant is the Edenic Covenant.  Sometimes I call this the Creation Covenant.  It’s outlined in Genesis 1:27-28.  Man is to rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field.  Male and female are created in the image and likeness of God to be His representatives, vice gerents ruling over all creation.  This covenant has a number of stipulations.  They’re to guard the garden.  They’re to work the garden.   Adam is to name all of the animals.  The woman is created in order to be his assistant in order to be his etzer to help the man in fulfilling the God-given responsibilities that he has as God’s representative.

We live in a world today where in human viewpoint the feminist movement comes along and says, “Well, to say that the wife is to help the man if fulfilling his God-given responsibilities is demeaning to women and this is a horrible thing.”

Once again, “it is this horrible antiquated patriarchal Christian thing that is Neanderthal so we need to get rid of it.”

The reality of it is this word etzer – the great thing about the Bible is everything hangs together and complements one another.  But you have to take the Bible as the whole, as being the Word of God.  Everywhere else in the Bible that you have the word etzer used, the person who is the etzer is God.  God is the helper of man.  So if etzer is a demeaning role as per the feminists, then that is a statement about the nature of God, that God would be in a demeaning role as an etzer.  So you see everything ultimately can be pushed back to some kind of statement about the nature of God.  So when the feminists come along with their propaganda and say women don’t need to be helpers to the husbands, then they are making a theological statement and blaspheming God because the underlying presupposition is that being a helper is a negative thing.  Yet the only other person in the Bible who is an etzer is God.  What a glorious thing to be an etzer!  That’s a God-like thing.

So the Edenic Covenant comes crashing down when man violates the one prohibition not to eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  That’s at the fall.  So God goes to plan B.  There’s a revision to the covenant. The Second Covenant.  He has a codicil that comes in and there are going to be certain stipulations.  Man was to rule over the animals, but the woman listened to an animal.  So an animal is the one who brought the temptation and deceived her.  So now there is going to be a new relationship with the animals.  Animals prior to the fall were herbivores.  They were herbivores.  They were grass eaters.  After the fall some become flesh eaters because now there’s death.  There’s violence that enters in.  The man and the woman were to multiply and fill the earth.  It was supposed to be a completely wonderful thing with nothing negative.  But now the woman is going to have pain in child birth as a reminder of the fall (the curse).  The man who was to guard and take care of the garden, now the ground is going to produce thorns and thistles.  There’s going to be laborious work involved in production from the soil.   The soil is now going to fight man.  So now labor becomes toilsome.  He lives by the sweat of his brow.  All of this is defined as the Adamic Covenant spelled out in Genesis 3:14-19.

But even in the midst of that covenant there is the proclamation of grace that the serpent is going to be crushed by the seed of the woman.  This is a prophecy of the fact that Jesus Christ is going to come to defeat Satan and reestablish that rule of man over creation when He returns at the Second Coming as the God-man.  So, as the greater Son of David (the greater Son of Adam), He will establish a kingdom ruled by a man, the God-man, and bring the earth back to what God originally intended it to be.

But as man developed from Adam there was sin and disobedience.  Men revolted against God, rebelled against God.  Evil multiplied itself across the face of the earth. God needed to bring judgment upon the earth because there was also an invasion by the sons of god which is a term for angels.  There were demons who invaded sexually seeking to destroy the genetic purity of the human race to block the seed of the woman.  So there was a flood.

Then in Genesis 9 God gives the second revision,The Third Covenant of the original creation covenant.  In each of these covenants man is still supposed to multiply and fill the earth.  There are similarities, but each sphere of responsibility gets modified because of sin and because of judgment.  So under the Noahic Covenant now there is going to be delegation of judicial responsibility to man so that man in Genesis 9 is now responsible for policing criminal behavior.  Man’s life is precious because every human being is in the image of God and so God says whenever man sheds man’s blood, man shall shed his blood (the criminal’s blood) indicating that human beings now have judicial responsibility to adjudicate criminal action and to execute those who commit murder.  This is the basis for human government.  It’s the basis for law in human society.  It’s the basis for establishing the whole principle of human government.

There is a promise given with the Noahic Covenant that God will not destroy the earth by water again.  This is going to be symbolized by a bow in the sky, a rainbow, which is associated with God’s presence in many other passages.  That rainbow is a constant reminder that God will never again destroy the earth by water.  He will destroy it by fire.  It’s also a reminder that as long as you continue to see rainbows – just remember that means you are still supposed to execute criminals.  The death penalty has not gone out.  It also means because it’s in the Noahic Covenant that the eating of meat is authorized for human beings.  So that means that you’re authorized to go have a good steak and good prime rib.  You’d better do it now because the implication here is that when the Millennial Kingdom comes we won’t be doing that.

My personal opinion is that God is going to create something that is going to taste just like a good rare prime rib.  But there won’t be the killing of animals so get your hunting done now.  Go out and eat all the steak you can because that will change when we go into the Millennial Kingdom.  It will be a new civilization.  But until then, the rainbow reminds you that you can go hunt, you can eat steak, you’re supposed to execute criminals and God’s not going to destroy the earth by water again.  See all that’s back into that one covenant.

4 Jewish Covenants

Now after the Noahic Covenant, as time went by man failed again so God had to set up a new system.The Fourth Covenant.  Now instead of working through the human race in its entirety, God decided He’s going to work through one specific family.  So He goes to the family of Shem, the third son of Noah (Ham, Shem, and Japheth) and one of his descendents (Abraham).  He calls out Abraham who is a believer already in Ur of the Chaldees.   He gives him a covenant, the Abrahamic Covenant.

There are three provisions.  God promises to give him a specific piece of real estate, the Fifth Covenant, which is much larger than the current nation of Israel, but it’s part of that land grant.  It will extend from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates and cover all the area of much of modern Lebanon, Israel, Syria, and Jordan which is the true Palestinian state.  Don’t forget that.

After 1948 the original land that was supposed to go to Israel in the Balfour Declaration back in 1918 had been chopped up many times through the 1930’s.  Instead of giving all of the land which is today Jordan and Israel to the Jews, the decision was made in the 30’s and 40’s to only give a little bit of the land to the west of the Jordan to Israel and the rest would go to the Arabs.  That means Jordan is the Palestinian state.  You don’t believe Arafat’s lies and propaganda that they have rights to land on the west side of the Jordan.  They don’t.   Arabs were given the land on the east side of the Jordan and the Jews were given the land on the west side of the Jordan.  But of course the U.N. can’t get anything right.  The U.N. is just the latest manifestation of the Tower of Babel.  The Tower of Babel (Genesis 11) is a great failure at this time which is why God had to work through Abraham.

So there are three provisions in the Abrahamic Covenant – land, seed and blessing.  Now each of these is then expanded in subsequent covenants to the Jews.  There’s the land,the Fifth  Covenant or the real estate covenant sometimes called the Palestinian Covenant because the term Palestinian used to mean Jewish.

That’s why the Palestinian regiment that served in the British army in WWII was an all Jewish regiment.  It did not have any Arabs in it.  In fact the only relative of Arafat that was operational at the time was the Mufti of Jerusalem who continuously went to Berlin to encourage Hitler to kill all of the Jews and to help him structure the final solution.  It was the Mufti of Jerusalem that was Arafat’s uncle who originated all the terrorist activity in the Middle East.

The term Palestine as I showed (What was it? Sunday) talked about that (or one time last week we were talking about… no two weeks ago) spiritual warfare uses the word that our struggle is not against flesh and blood in Ephesians 6:11.  The word there for struggle is based on the Greek root pale which means to wrestle or to struggle which is the root for Palestine.  The term Palestine was first given to the land of Israel by the ancient Greeks.  It was a word play.  Palestine sounded like Philistine but notice it is a “p” and not an “f”.  It was called Palestine because the root word meant wrestler.  Jacob was the one who wrestled with God at Peniel in Genesis so the Greeks got a great laugh about of that.  They were going to call Palestine the Land of the Wrestler (Israel, Jacob).  It would sound like the Philistines.  So now we are still plagued with that.  The modern so-called Palestinians want everyone to think that their name comes from the Philistines and that they have an ancient right to the land. Once again it is the devil’s propaganda.

So you have the land promise.  You have the second covenant that expands the Abrahamic Covenant is the seed covenant, the Sixth Covenant,  the Davidic Covenant. II Samuel 7 where God promises that David will have an eternal descendent upon his throne.

Then the final breakout covenant of the Abrahamic Covenant is the covenant we’re studying, the New Covenant. The Seventh Covenant.  Now the only other covenant that I haven’t listed is the conditional or temporary covenant of the Mosaic Covenant which is given in Exodus chapters 20 through 40.   

So this gives us the covenantal structure that we find in the Bible.  Here we have the Abrahamic Covenant – three segments – land, seed, and blessing - the land covenant Deuteronomy 30; the Davidic Covenant II Samuel 7 developing the seed, and then the New Covenant Jeremiah 31.  Jeremiah 31 is the core passage. It’s the only New Covenant passage that uses the words “new covenant”, but there are other passages.  The Davidic Covenant also had three elements – the promise of an eternal house, the promise of an eternal kingdom, and the promise of an eternal throne.  This sets up the background for understanding the New Covenant.  The land covenant develops the land promise; the Davidic Covenant develops the seed promise; the New Covenant develops the worldwide blessing promise.

Last time we went through this fairly quickly.  You may not get all the Scriptures written down, but we’re going to go through each of these to see what they teach us about the New Covenant so you’ll eventually get them.  Jeremiah 31:31-34 is the central passage for the New Covenant.  If you compare that with Isaiah 49:8, 54:10, 55:3, 59:21; 61:8-9, Jeremiah 32:37-41, Ezekiel 11:19, 16:60-63, 18:31, 34:25, 36:25-8, 37:21-28, Hosea 2:17-20 and Amos 9:13-15.

All of these passages tell us something about the New Covenant. The covenant is between God as party of the first part and the house of Judah and the house of Israel as the party of the second part.  Now any contract is between two parties.  You sign your mortgage agreement and the mortgage agreement is between you and the mortgage company.  The mortgage company is the party of the first part and you are party of the second part.  You sign a contract with Visa or with MasterCard or whatever credit card you have.  It’s the same kind of thing.  There are certain provisions in that covenant.  Those provisions have to do with interest rates, time periods, and other things like that.  Your next door neighbor may have a credit card.  His credit rating may give him a different interest rate.  But just because he has a different interest rate doesn’t give you the right to tell your credit card company that his 10% is better than your 12% so you’re only going to pay them at his rate.  You can’t apply terms of somebody else’s contract to your contract.  

Eight Characteristics of Love

Eight Characteristics of Love  RD/1 John/070

It is initiating. That means it takes charge. In God’s plan of salvation he provided a perfect solution from eternity past in order to restore the relationship with man that was broken by Adam’s original sin.

His love at the cross is aggressive. He took charge of the situation, made a plan, worked the plan, and asserted Himself with confidence and boldness.

It is a love that is humble. It doesn’t seek its own personal glory. Jesus Christ gave up His rights to have that glory as demonstrated on the Mount of Transfiguration, to be all that He was as God in heaven, and to take on the form of a servant to do everything that was necessary to bring about salvation for fallen humanity.

It is intense. There is a passion to it, not necessarily in an emotional sense but in the sense that there is a zealous determination to achieve the goal of salvation despite all obstacles.

There is steadfast loyalty. God is loyal to His promises to man despite all of man’s disobedience and sinfulness.

It is consecrated. We are set apart to a test. Jesus Christ was set apart for the high purpose of being the exclusive means of salvation for the church.  

Dedication. Jesus was dedicated to the task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification.

Devoted. He gave or applied Himself entirely to a particular activity. In His case the activity was the incarnation and crucifixion for the salvation of the world.

Eight Judgments in Scripture

Eight Judgments in Scripture   RD/Heb/171b

So we have to review though that there are the judgments.  There are 8 different judgments in Scripture.  So whenever we see the word judgment like this we have to say which kind of judgment, which judgment is being addressed?

So first I’m going to put a timeline.  From the cross, then we have the resurrection and ascension.  When the Holy Spirit descends fifty days after the crucifixion, the Church Age begins.  The Church Age ends with the rapture of the church.  All believers, living and dead, receive their resurrection bodies, meet the Lord in the air, and after that we have our first judgment, The Bema Judgment, the Bema Seat.  The Judgment Seat of Christ is for believers only.  You don't get there unless you have eternal life.  You don't get there unless you're justified.  You don't get there unless you're saved, phase one salvation.  But a lot of the believers that end up there are going to be believers who did not do anything with their new life to Christ who were disobedient and rebellious.  They're still going to face an evaluation at the Judgment Seat of Christ for how they've lived their life, how responsibly or irresponsibly they used the gifts and the information and the knowledge of Scripture that God gave them, the grace that God gave them.  So the Judgment Seat of Christ is an evaluation.  It's report card time and we're all going to go through this report card time and get an evaluation of how well we did after we were saved - not for the purpose of where we're going to end up in eternity; but what role we're going to have, what responsibilities were going to have in the coming kingdom.

So this takes place during that time known as the Great Tribulation, the seven years we have on the earth.  This ends with the return of Jesus Christ to the earth.  The church will return with Him, and it is at that time that we have been next judgment.  At that time there are two things that happen at the same time.  The Antichrist and the False Prophet are sent to the Lake of Fire. 

Then there's a judgment of those believers who made it through the tribulation.  This is called the Sheep and the Goat Judgment.  The first judgment is for the surviving Gentiles.  The second judgment of that is for surviving Jews.  The next judgment is Old Testament saints.  Then the next judgment is tribulation saints.  So that gives 5 different judgments now.  The first one is the Bema Seat for believers only, Church Age believers. Then the second is related to the judgments, the Sheep and Goat judgment of surviving Gentiles, surviving Jews, Old Testament saints, tribulation saints, then the Antichrist and False Prophet.

Then there's the period of the Millennial Kingdom which ends with the Great White Throne Judgment.  All of the unsaved dead are judged at that point, and they are then sent to the Lake of Fire.  Then Satan is sent to the Lake of Fire.

So those are your 8 judgments.  Some people say well that’s 9 judgments – the Antichrist and False Prophet should be separated.  It doesn't matter.  You don’t get picky about numbers.  But that's the basic breakdown.  You have these 8 different judgments.

Elisha's Four Character Qualities

Elisha Four Character Qualities  RD/Kings 077b

As we come to look at this chapter we are going to see some of these4 characteristics and character qualities emphasized in the character of Elisha, and these qualities mark him as a successful believer—not successful as the world counts success in terms of numbers, popularity or financial success, but in terms of his ministry for God. God’s definition of success is that we are to be faithful and obedient. The character qualities to be summarized here are in four terms, terms that are synonymous. They overlap, there are slight differences but they do define an important dimension in anyone who is going to be a success in the spiritual life.     

The first word is “perseverance.” We are to press on in spiritual growth in spite of difficulties, discouragement, adversity or prosperity. In the New Testament, especially in the epistle of James and in the twelfth chapter of Hebrews this is marked out by a Greek word hupomone [u(pomonh] which means to endure, to stay under. It is the idea of staying under the pressure, staying in the pressure cooker of difficulty, opposition and whatever, and consistently applying the Word of God. It is in those times that we grown and we learn about the faithfulness of God.  

The second word is “persistence.” It is very close to perseverance and we use it to emphasize the idea of continuing doggedly or obstinately, even spiritually stubborn, that no matter what difficulty we face, what opposition may come or what failures we encounter we are not going to let any of that deter us from our primary mission in life which is to be conformed to the character of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is through the study of God’s Word to let God the Holy Spirit have the tools He needs in order to work in our lives and in our souls.

Third, this means that we must be spiritually tenacious. That means we are unwilling to let go, unwilling to give up.

Fourth, we are to be spiritually aggressive. We really see all of these in Elisha’s attitude and in the way he is handling himself in this chapter. By spiritual aggression we are emphasizing the word “zeal.” That sometimes has a negative connotation that comes from the world system that always wants to make someone who is totally committed to the Word of God into some sort of fanatic.

But in terms of what those words really mean that is what we are supposed to be—completely, totally sold out, dedicated to God’s mission for our lives. So in this category it is showing a tremendous energy and enthusiasm for learning the Word of God, applying the Word of God in our spiritual life, and growing to spiritual maturity. All of these are seen in Elisha in this chapter.

Elisha's Sixteen Miracles

Elisha's Sixteen Miracles  RD/Kings 081a

Starting at 2 Kings 2:13, 14 we will go through the sixteen miracles of Elisha. These miracles are not just done in order to satisfy certain needs. That is a mistake that many people make when they come to the miracles of Jesus. Every single miracle in the life of Jesus was for a purpose—to teach people about God, His Word, and about His provision for us. The same thing is true about the miracles and the ministries of Elijah and Elisha. The first miracle we see in the ministry of Elisha is the parting of the Jordan river as he comes back from the time when the transition occurs between Elijah and Elisha and Elijah is taken in the whirlwind to heaven. The key players in this first miracle are Elijah who has just departed, Elisha, and the sons of the prophets from Jericho. When Elijah was taken to heaven Elisha tore his clothes indicating his grief. He takes up the mantle of Elijah which was a symbol of his divine authority as a prophet and as he headed back and as he crossed the Jordan he took the mantle of Elijah and put it in the water of the Jordan. The Jordan then split, God separated the waters, and he crossed over the Jordan on dry land. This was to demonstrate that Elisha had the same power, the same Spirit of God upon him that Elijah had had.

Notice, too, it was a water miracle. As we go through these miracles we notice that most of them had to do with water, oil, grain, and they almost all have something to do with life. Why? Because God is continuing to demonstrate through these miracles that He, Yahweh the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is the sovereign God of the universe; He is the God of life, the one who supplies that which is needed for life—water, oil, grain. It is not Baal, the false god of the Phoenicians. God is demonstrating to the nation through these miracles, just as He had done through Elijah, that Baal and the Asherim are impotent and can’t do anything; it is He who supplies all that is needed for life. So there is this contrast being set up here between the death culture of the fertility religion and the life that only God can provide. Remember that when Moses gave his parting sermon, the book of Deuteronomy, he ended it by saying: “Choose you this day death or life.” These are the options God sets before every single human being. What we see in all of these sixteen miracles that occur in Elisha’s ministry is this emphasis on life, that God gives life whereas the pagan culture of the northern kingdom of Israel is a culture of death. We have to decide if we are going to choose the path of obedience to God which leads to life or the path of assimilation to the culture which is the path of death. 2 Kings 2:13, 14 shows that Elisha has the same power of God, the life-giving Yahweh, and he is going to be the new prophetic leader in the northern kingdom.

The second miracle that occurs is in the same chapter, vv. 19-22, when he came to Jericho and the city came to him and said that the water was bad. The water was bitter and the ground was barren, a picture of death, the judgment of God upon the land and upon the water. It is death, and so they come to Elisha who puts salt in the water and says, v. 21, “Thus says the LORD, ‘I have purified these waters; there shall not be from there death or unfruitfulness any longer.’” Death and barrenness is the result of sin and disobedience. Now there is going to be life, the water is now purified. Again, this is a water miracle.

Then there is another little event. There are three of these judgment curses in this section and because they do involve the action of God’s power and are not just things that circumstantially happen. It is still something that indicates a miracle, something of divine intervention that has occurred. As we have seen, when Elisha left Jericho he went up to Bethel and there were the bunch of juvenile delinquents that came out—obviously a large number because not all of them were mauled by the bears, just 42—to ridicule Elisha because they don’t respect his authority and that he has the authority of Elijah. Elisha pronounces a curse on them, v. 24, and two female bears maul them. That is a sign of judgment, that disobedience to God brings death and judgment; in contrast these other miracles emphasize obedience to God who brings life and blessing. That is the third miracle.

The fourth miracle in chapter three is the defeat of Moab. In that event Elisha is sought out for his counsel because as they circled around the southern part of the Dead Sea and all of the dried up desert area they ran out of water. The waters came down and filled the trenches. Water comes at the command of God. He provides the water, and not only that, when the Moabite army arose the next morning and looked at the Israelite army and because of the refraction of the light to the water it appeared to be blood. This was a miracle that God provided so that it looked like blood and cause them to think the three kings had fallen out with each other, the armies had slaughtered each other, and now they are going to take advantage of the situation, charge in and destroy the Israelites. But they are taken by surprise because God has deceived them, and they get slaughtered by the armies of Judah, Israel and Edom. God had provided a life for the armies of Israel but He did not give them a total victory because it was not His will for them to take possession of Moab.

In chapter four is the fifth miracle, the oil provided for the widow. The key people here are Elisha, the woman’s dead husband who is one of the sons of the prophets and a faithful believer, his widow, his two children and their creditor. The husband was a faithful believer but he had some debts and now the creditor is coming to put pressure on the widow to pay up. If she didn’t pay up the children would be made slaves. The widow is destitute and has absolutely nothing except one jar of oil. She comes to Elisha as the representative of God to provide a solution to her problem. Elisha tells her to gather all her containers, every one she could find, put them in her house, close the door, and then  to start filling those containers with the oil from the pot that she had. She began to do that. God, of course, miraculously multiplied the oil and she filled up every single container until there were no more containers that could be found. Elisha then told her to sell off enough for her to pay the debt and to keep the remainder in order to provide for the finances of her family. This was a miracle from God showing once again that God’s grace is sufficient. He can solve the problems; His resources are infinite. The emphasis is on blessing for those who are trusting in God, and that there is life in the land even when the people of God are surrounded by judgment on the rank paganism that is there. There is this life versus death theme: life from God and death in paganism.

The next episode (The Sixth Miracle)  Min chapter four describes the Shunamite woman, vv. 8-37. Briefly, the key people here are Elisha, his servant Gehazi, the Shunamite woman, her husband and her son. At the beginning we see this woman who lives in the Jezreel Valley and who sees Elisha coming back and forth before her house on a periodic basis and so she tells her husband that they should honor the prophet of God. 2 Kings 4:10 NASB “Please, let us make a little walled upper chamber and let us set a bed for him there, and a table and a chair and a lampstand; and it shall be, when he comes to us, {that} he can turn in there.” In return for this and for her devotion to God and her grace orientation Elisha told her that in about a year she would have a child. She and her husband are older, like Abraham and Sarah, and it is not possible for them to have children. Again this depicts God giving life where there is death. God is the source of life. And so the child is born and lives for some years and then suddenly becomes ill and dies. Now the woman reacts and becomes somewhat angry and bitter towards Elisha.

2 Kin 4:27, 28 NASB “When she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught hold of his feet. And Gehazi came near to push her away; but the man of God said, ‘Let her alone, for her soul is troubled within her; and the LORD has hidden it from me and has not told me.’ Then she said, ‘Did I ask for a son from my lord? Did I not say, ‘Do not deceive me’?’” So Elisha sends Gehazi to heal the child but that doesn’t work and so Elisha comes and lies down upon the child, prays to God, and the child then is brought back to life, vv. 34, 35. Again, this emphasizes that God is the solution to our problems, His grace is magnificent and sufficient, and He has the power and the ability to solve all of our problems. That was the sixth miracle.

The seventh Miracle is the poisoned pot, 4:38-41. During the same famine that was going on all of this time the prophet comes to Gilgal where he sees the sons of the prophets. So the key players are Elisha and the sons of the prophets. They are sitting there and to make a meal they go out into the fields to get vegetables to put into the stew, along with some gourds from a wild vine which poisons the stew. They cry out to Elisha that there is death in the pot. He puts some flour into the pot and says to serve it to the people so that they may eat, so now it is going to provide for many. It is like the feeding of the five thousand that we see in Jesus’ ministry. Again God’s grace is sufficient, it is through trusting in God that there is life rather than death.

Then the eighth miracle is in the last few verses of the chapter which is the multiplying of the loaves and the grain. 2 Kings 4:42-44 NASB “Now a man came from Baal-shalishah, and brought the man of God bread of the first fruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And he said, ‘Give {them} to the people that they may eat.’ His attendant said, ‘What, will I set this before a hundred men?’ But he said, ‘Give {them} to the people that they may eat, for thus says the LORD, ‘They shall eat and have {some} left over.’’ So he set {it} before them, and they ate and had {some} left over, according to the word of the LORD.” Again, God is the source of life, His grace is abundant and free, and there is death apart from God.

In chapter five (The Ninth Miracle) what has happened and he comes and tells Naaman to go wash in the Jordan seven times and he would be healed. The man thinks this is silly and stupid at first, gets mad at Elisha and prepares to go home but his servant comes and tells him to simmer down and trust in God. Naaman does and he washes in the Jordan seven times and is healed. He returns to Elisha and praises God. 2 Kings 5:15 NASB “When he returned to the man of God with all his company, and came and stood before him, he said, ‘Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel; so please take a present from your servant now’.” He tries to give a gift but Elisha won’t take anything.

The tenth miracle is the floating axe head. Elisha makes the axe head float as the workers are preparing a place down by the Jordan. The axe head that they have borrowed flies off the handle and sinks in the water and Elisha throws a stick in the water so that the iron will float. Again, these miracles confirm who Elisha is. If they had lost the borrowed axe head there would have been some penalty and it again shows that God’s grace is sufficient, He handles all of our problems.

The eleventh miracle deals with what we might call the divine espionage. The Syrians are constantly in battle with the northern kingdom of Israel. The king of Syria keeps getting outwitted by the king of Israel who seems to know his every move. He begins to blame those in his periphery that they are selling out to the enemy, that there is a spy among them. They say no it is just this prophet Elisha who knows your every move because God tells him. You can’t avoid the omniscience of God. The king of Syria is now really angry with Elisha so he sends his whole army after Elisha. Elisha is down in a small village in Israel with Gehazi. Gehazi goes out in the morning and sees that the city is surrounded by this army. They have a capture order for Elisha, so Gehazi comes back panicky. Elisha prays to God the he will open his eyes, pull back the curtain, as it were, between physical, material earth so that Gehazi can see the myriads of angels which stands between Elisha and the Syrian army—recognizing that the battle is the Lord’s, it is not out battle, and that we need to trust in Him and He is the one who gives us the victory.

The next episode (The Twelvth Miracle) is when they capture a couple of the Syrians and rather than kill them or put them in prison the king of Israel asks Elisha what he should do with them. Elisha says not to kill them but to put water and food before them that they may eat and drink and go to their master. In other words, deal with them in grace and kindness, give them that which promotes life rather than death, and the result is that they go home and this particular action by the Syrians against them is shut down.

Then in verse 24 (The Thirteenth Miracle) there is another military action against the northern kingdom. 2 Kings 6:25 NASB “There was a great famine in Samaria; and behold, they besieged it, until a donkey’s head was sold for eighty {shekels} of silver, and a fourth of a kab of dove’s dung for five {shekels} of silver.” That is a lot for just a donkey’s head to cook and make soup. That would be like two or three month’s wages just top make a donkey head soup. The circumstances were really tough. Not only that but there is another situation where one woman comes who had entered into a bargain with a neighbor lady and said, We are starving to death. We will cook your son for dinner today and cook mine for dinner tomorrow. The neighbor lady killed her son but when it came time for the first lady’s turn she wouldn’t give up her son. It was really tough in the northern kingdom under divine discipline. The king went to Elisha wanting to know what the solution would be. God was going to provide the answer. This is the thirteenth episode.

2 Kings 7:1 NASB Then Elisha said, “Listen to the word of the LORD; thus says the LORD, ‘Tomorrow about this time a measure of fine flour will be {sold} for a shekel, and two measures of barley for a shekel, in the gate of Samaria.’”  In other words, there is going to be abundance tomorrow. What happens during the night is similar to what happens to the king of Assyria later on. Suddenly there is panic in the camp of the Syrian army and they all flee leaving everything behind—all of their food and provisions—as they run back to Syria because they thought they heard the rumblings of an army. A couple of lepers who are out begging by the gate of the city decide they are going to die if they stay there and if they go into the city they are going to be killed, so they decide to surrender to the Syrians and maybe we can get food from them. They are the ones who discover the empty camp. Again, a wonderful example of God providing escape for Israel; life rather than death. God is the source, His grace is more than sufficient.

Then we come to another episode with the Shunamite woman. This is the fourteenth miracle where her land is restored to her. Elisha tells her to leave Israel during this time of famine and she lived among the Philistines for seven years. When she returned she found that all of her land and property had been confiscated and she went to the king. When the king found out who she was and that Elisha had raised her son from the dead, so he restores all of her land to her.

The fifteenth miracle involves the episode with Hazael in the latter part of chapter eight, vv. 7-15. Ben-hadad is about to die so he sends his second in command, Hazael, to seek out Elisha to find out if he is really going to die. Hazael goes to meet Elisha and Elisha says, You are going to be the next king, and he begins to weep. He is weeping because God has revealed to Elisha that Hazael is going to terribly persecute the northern kingdom, attack them, and hundreds will be killed in the violence and famine that will come because of Hazael. Hazel returns and tells Ben-hadad that he is going to live and then killed him.

The last miracle (The Sixteenth Miracle) is after Elisha dies in chapter thirteen. A man who is dead is thrown in to the grave with him and because of Elisha’s dead bones there a miracle occurs and the man comes back to life. Once again, God gives life where there is death.

What is taught in all of this is the doctrine of grace. Notice the emphasis on providing the resources of life—rain, water, oil. God’s grace is more than sufficient. He is the source of life.

Enemies of the Spiritual Life

The Enemies of the Spiritual Life   RD/Kings/074b

The World

The system of thought pioneered by Satan and characterized by autonomy and antagonism to God.

The Flesh

The internal corrupt nature of man that is committed to autonomy and antagonism.

The Devil

The highest of God’s intelligent creation who pioneered autonomy and antagonism.

Ephesus

Ephesus

EPHESUS (”Efesoj).  The city of Ephesus lay at the mouth of the Cayster \ka‚ is_ ter\ on the western coast of Asia Minor.  The river valley of the Cayster was a highway into the interior, the terminal of a trade route that linked with other roads converging and branching out toward the separated civilizations of the East.  This is why Ephesus was chosen by the early Ionian colonists from Athens as a sight for their colony.  (p. 325)

Deepening economic depression and decline must have been a feature of Ephesus' life over the last century B.C.  The city turned to the equivalent of her tourist trade.  Multitudes came to visit the temple of Artemis \är_ ta mis\.  (p. 326)

The general impression left with the archeologist and historian, who peer into the crowded past of the great city, is that the guild-master [Demetrius, the silversmith of Acts 19:23] was not unjustified in his claim that “all Asia [Asia Minor] and the world [hyperbole]” (Acts 19:27) reverenced the Ephesian Artemis.  As the guild master by implication admitted, the temple was the core of Ephesus' commercial prosperity.  Around the great shrine, to which worshipers and tourists poured from far and near, tradesmen and hucksters found a living, supplying visitors with food and lodging, dedicatory offerings, and the silver souvenir models of the shrine that the guild of Demetrius was most interested in making and selling.

Paul was, in fact, assaulting a stronghold of pagan religion, together with the active life and commerce associated with a vast heathen cult, in a key city of the central Mediterranean and a focal point of communication.  (p. 327)

Europe Union

The Present EUniting of the Roman Empire RD/Rev 194

1951 European Coal and Steel Community (6 nations)

1957 Treaty of Rome (EEC; same 6 nations)

1973 4 more nations join

1981 Greece joins, the 10th member

1986 Portugal and Spain join

1991 The End of the Cold War (Fall of USSR)

1992 Treaty of Maastricht (created the EU)

1995 Austria, Finland, and Sweden join

2002 Single currency – the EURO

2004 10 more nations join; new constitution           signed

Events After The Cross

The Events After the Cross  RD/1 Cor. 068

1)      The events at Jesus’ death included His soul and spirit departing from His physical body on the cross. Luke 23:46 NASB “And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, “Father, INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMIT MY SPIRIT.” Having said this, He breathed His last.” It is at that point that Jesus’ spirit goes into the presence of God. This is not the ascension, this is only His immaterial spirit going into the presence of God the Father.

2)      His body went into the grave for three days and three nights. Then there is the resurrection before dawn on the morning of the resurrection Sunday. After Jesus was resurrected bodily from the grave He saw Mary Magdalene. John 20:17 NASB “Jesus said to her, ‘Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’” Here the word is anabaino [a)nabainw] which means to go up to the Father—present active indicative, which means he is ascending to the Father.

3)      Later that same day in the evening he doesn’t have a problem with the disciples touching His physical body. In 20:17 Mary is holding on to Jesus as though she doesn’t want to lose Him again. So He says to stop clinging to Him, He has a mission to go to the Father. It is not the fact that she can’t touch Him physically. The point of the passage related to ascension is that He has to ascend, and it is present time, that Sunday morning. Then that evening when He appears to the disciples he has no trouble with them touching His physical body, He has apparently completed salvation. Salvation has as part of its primary work the work of paying the penalty for sin. Then there is the resurrection but you can’t divorce the resurrection from the whole package. Then there is the final presentation of Himself in heaven, into the heavenly temple and sanctifies that heavenly temple by His presence. That is the completion of the mission. When we look at the whole package of salvation it begins with His work on the cross, His substitutionary atonement where he pays the penalty for sin, then there is His time in the grave, then the resurrection which gives His victory over physical death, and then this ascension is when He presents the whole salvation package as being completed to the Father and this sanctifies the heavenly temple. Once that is done, then He returns to the earth—which would be later that Sunday afternoon—and presents himself to the apostles. Luke 24:38 NASB “And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? [39] See My hands and My feet [empirical evidence], that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.’”

The events of the ascension itself

These are described by two of the Gospel writers, Mark and Luke. Mark 16:19 NASB “So then, when the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.” That is a very brief description of the ascension and session. We have a passive verb here, He is received up into heaven. This is expanded in Luke 24:50ff NASB “And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. While He was blessing them, He parted from them and was carried up into heaven.” So He is on the Mount of Olives. “He parted from them” is the aorist active indicative of the Greek verb diistemi [diisthmi] which means to part or leave or to depart. As an active voice is shows that His will is involved and He is the one who parts from them; “carried up into heaven” is the Greek word anaphero [a)naferw], but here it is an imperfect passive indicative. So He is taken up, something is removing Him from the presence of the earth. He is being raised up or taken up while they watched. What is it that is carrying Him up into heaven? We don’t have that in Luke but we do have that in Acts 1:2, “until the day when He was taken up {to heaven.}” Here we have the word analambano [a)nalambanw] which means simply to take up, to raise up, but it is an aorist passive indicative. So here it is just a kind of summary: something is taking Him up. [9] “And after He had said these things, He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.” He was actually lifted up, and here we have the third word for the ascension, epairo [e)pairw], which means to lift something up, and this is an aorist passive indicative. So again the subject, Jesus Christ, receives the action of the verb. A cloud received Him out of their sight, but there is nothing normal about this cloud. In fact, it is thought that this cloud is a manifestation of the Shekinah that was seen back in the Old Testament. The cloud “receives” Him, and there we have the word hupolambano [u(polambanw], aorist active indicative. That means the subject performs the action, and the subject here is the cloud.

      Acts 1:11 NASB “They also said, ‘Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come in just the same way as you have watched Him go into heaven.’”

Four observations

1)      He did He depart? He went physically. That means He will return and come again physically and bodily.

2)      He went up. When he returns He will come down.

3)      He went up bodily; He will come back bodily in the same body in which He left.

4)      He went up from the Mount of Olives, and when He returns He will return to the Mount of Olives.

This excludes certain options. First of all, liberal theology will try to make the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2 the return of Christ, but His coming again is not the coming of the Holy Spirit. Furthermore, there is a view pf prophecy called Preterism (which means past) which claims that the second coming of Christ is already in the past, and they try to make this an allusion to 70 AD, that Jesus came in judgment on Israel in 70 AD. But notice: In 70 AD there was no literal, physical bodily descent of Jesus Christ to the Mount of Olives. Once again, they have to spiritualise or allegorise the passage. Only a literal bodily return fits, and this is what pre-Millennialism teaches, that Jesus will return physically, bodily to the Mount of Olives at the end of the Tribulation to establish that postponed kingdom on the earth.

One of the implications from this: If Jesus has ascended physically and bodily, if you could watch Him go up to be enveloped by this cloud and then be taken up completely out of sight into the heavens, one of the implications is that Jesus exists right now at some point in His physical body. Now that is a radically different view of the universe than could ever conceive or has been taught. He went through the universe as we’ll see, and right now in His humanity in that resurrection body He is still probably a five feet ten inch body that is located somewhere in a physical space. He is seated at the right hand of God the Father in His humanity. Jesus Christ as a true human being is now at the controls of the universe. The universe is not run by an angel, it is not run by God, it is run by a man now.

Jesus Christ ascended so that the Holy Spirit could come. As we will see, it is this ascension that lays the groundwork for the spiritual life of the church age. If we go back into the Old Testament we see that it was the departure of the Shekinah (dwelling) from the temple from the Mount of Olives. There was a gradual departure as seen in three verses in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 9:3 “Then the glory of the God of Israel went up from the cherub on which it had been, to the threshold of the temple…  [10:4] Then the glory of the LORD went up from the cherub to the threshold of the temple, and the temple was filled with the cloud and the court was filled with the brightness of the glory of the LORD…. [11:23] The glory of the LORD went up from the midst of the city and stood over the mountain which is east of the city [Mount of Olives].” Then it departs to heaven. So just as the Shekinah in the Old Testament ascended to heaven from the Mount of Olives so Jesus goes to the Mount of Olives and ascends from there, and He will return there. This is just one of those things that shows the internal consistency of the Scriptures.

How does the Bible conceive of this ascent? 1 Peter 3:22 NASB “who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.” In His deity, as the second person of the Trinity, those angels and authorities and powers, the hierarchy of the angels, He would have been over them. But this is stating that He in His humanity, in hypostatic union, as the God-Man, now has authority over all of the angels. It is a Man, a human being now over the angels. That word translated “gone” is the aorist passive participle (deponent verb) of poreuomai [poreuomai], the word for going on a journey. So it pictures His ascent as a journey from point A to point B. He travelled somewhere.

Hebrews 4:14 NASB “Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. [15] For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as {we are, yet} without sin.” His high-priestly function today is directly related to His ascension and session. But v. 14 gives us another interesting insight: “[He] passed through the heavens.” This is a plural, a different view of the heavens and the universe that we normally get in a science class today. The Bible looks at the universe as having three heavens: a) the earth’s atmosphere; b) the starry sky; c) the throne of God. 

Existence of God

The reality of the existence of God and His revelation.

RD/1 Cor. 016

If we look at 1 Corinthians chapter two there are a number of things that are said there that have profound implications for the believer’s impact on the unbelieving world, specifically through witnessing. Remember that as believers we are going to view reality from the viewpoint of the truth of Scripture. Unapologetically we are going to use the Scripture, and we must use the Scripture, as our starting point.

1)      If God exists, then reality is what he says it is. Therefore we must operate within the framework and the boundaries of what He says because that is reality. So then divine viewpoint is going to equal reality. If at any point we step outside of that boundary then at that point we are going to be divorced from reality and are going to be operating on false assumptions and methodologies.

2)      If God exists, then He has revealed that reality to us. (When we use the term God here we are not talking about some abstract deity. This can’t be conformed to just any god out there, the god of the Hindus, the god of Islam, the god of deism. We specifically refer to the God of the Bible, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who revealed Himself through the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ) The God of the Bible wants fellowship with His creatures and He is a person and therefore one who communicates. In other words, He tells us what the rules are. The unbeliever isn’t the one who determines what the rules are, the cosmic system, the culture around us isn’t what determines what the rules are; it is God who determines what the rules are for us. It is always the unbeliever’s strategy to change the rules of the game, it part of what it means to suppress the truth in unrighteousness and be a rebel against God and live in autonomy and independence from God. So as believers we know what reality is, we know something the unbeliever doesn’t know, so we stay within the framework of reality.

3)      Rom 1:18-23, 25 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures… For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.” So here we have our two categories established by the Scripture. Divine viewpoint is the thinking of the creator; human viewpoint is a separate and distinct category that is the thinking of the creature. The creature is going to use as his starting point for all thought something inside the creation; he is going to start with history, with human reason, with morality, with some level of human experience, that everything is inside the creaturely realm. So what happens is that in his thinking he is going to elevate some principle of the creation to some sort of independent or autonomous status so that he is now using that standard to judge God. We have to be aware of this, not because it is something we are going to bring up in witnessing, but this is our framework, understanding where we as believers are coming from in the whole process of witnessing and explaining the gospel to an unbeliever.

4)      The unbeliever is able to ascertain enough of the meaning of non-verbal revelation to know God exists and be accountable for that, but that is not enough to get saved. The unbeliever can’t get saved just by looking out at the creation and saying it just couldn’t happen by chance, there has to be something more, and he wants to know more about that. That is the expression of positive volition and then God, because God is just and because He is fair, is going to get specific, verbal information to him. The testimony of the creation—Psalm 19:1 NASB “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands”—isn’t specific. Non-verbal revelation is non-specific revelation, it just gets us information that God exists and something about His power and His nature, but it is not enough to be saved. We recognize that the unbeliever we are trying to witness to already has an inherent internal witness. He knows and knew at some point that God exists and he rejected it. He rejected it not because he may come up with certain excuses but ultimately the rejection is that he doesn’t want to submit to the authority of God. He may amass rational and empirical and moral reasons that are used later to rationalize and justify that unbelief but that is not the foundational reason for the unbelief.

5)      The ultimate issue, therefore, is not evidence. Scripture says there is more than enough evidence. It is not reason, it is not empirical data. The problem isn’t intellectual, it is spiritual. Though the issue isn’t reason, isn’t empiricism or evidence or history, though it isn’t intellectual, that doesn’t mean that Christianity is anti-intellectual, anti-reason or anti-empiricism. That is mysticism; Christianity is not mysticism. The issue is, what is the ultimate criterion? For the believer the ultimate criterion is not going to be history or reason or morality or experience because when you pick these as your criterion to determine truth what you do then is elevate something inside creation over and above God and then that becomes this autonomous, independent abstract criterion for determining truth and reality. All that we are saying as believers is that the ultimate criterion isn’t reason, isn’t experience, it is the fact that God speaks, that God has spoken and given accurate and true information. So the issue is the starting point, i.e. the assumption that you and the unbeliever bring to the table before you ever start talking. We must realize that the ultimate issue is not going to be reason or empiricism, and that means that we don’t have to have all the answers, we don’t have to be able to answer every question that an unbeliever may come up with. The issues are ultimately going to be spiritual issues, they have to do with the revelation of God; they don’t have to do with trying to present enough arguments, enough evidence for the existence of God.

6)      If God exists—i.e. the God of the Bible who has revealed Himself and has revealed truth to us in the Scriptures—then the Holy Spirit is doing certain things behind the scenes in terms of making the gospel clear. It is not you who are trying to convince the other person. When you sit down and engage in a conversation with an unbeliever and you are going to witness to that unbeliever you know that you have an ally in the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit is doing certain things behind the scenes. It is not up to you, then, to try to convince the other person because ultimately you and I can’t convince the other person. Ultimately you and I can’t convince the other person, it is not a one-on-one argument. The issues are spiritual and so there has to be spiritual information or affirmation given, and that is provided by God the Holy Spirit. That raises another question in light of what we see in 1 Cor. 2, that in his thinking he is going to elevate some principle of the creation to some sort of independent or autonomous status so that he is now using that standard to judge God. That is the thesis of what we are saying here. [Gap in recording] …. John 16:8, 9 NASB “And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.” John 3:18 KJV “He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God”—not because he sinned, not because he committed adultery, not because he was a mass murderer, but because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. So the first thing the Holy Spirit is going to be doing when you are witnessing to an unbeliever is He is going to be convicting them of the fact that they do not trust in Christ as their savior. They are trusting in something else, and they are always trusting in something else. Often what happens is the unbeliever says he is not a man of faith. There you are, your faith is in your autonomous reasoning and your ability to find reality apart from the revelation of God. Everybody at root level is a believer. The issue is what you are believing in. Sometimes in explaining the gospel you have to expose that kind of irrationality. Secondly, John 16:10 says, “and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me.” The point of righteousness here is that God is righteous, man lacks righteousness [-R]. For absolute perfection to have fellowship with anything that object of God’s fellowship must also have perfect righteousness. So part of that conviction is that we do not meet the standard of God. Third, verse 11: “and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” That is a prophetic perfect tense indicating that the ruler of the world would be judged—the next day actually, on the cross. So that is what the Holy Spirit has been convicting them of, that sin has been judged and the rebellion has been judged and dealt with, and that all sins have been paid for. So this is a threefold element to the gospel that God the Holy Spirit is going to be emphasizing in any witnessing encounter. If we are off trying to argue creation and evolution, or some other facet, then we are not giving the Holy Spirit a whole lot to work with, because the Holy Spirit doesn’t work in a vacuum, He always works with the Word of God, so we have to focus on what God is emphasizing. That doesn’t mean these other issues are ignored, it is how we handle it, and learning that is part of growing and maturing and developing experience. We just have to express the gospel to the best of our ability and God the Holy Spirit is going to be working to make sure certain things are clear.

7)      Witnessing involves two areas, the lips and the life. What we communicate verbally is more important than what we communicate through the witness of our life, but we need to have a life that at some level substantiates what we are saying. The life gives us a platform in many cases to communicate clearly. It is the lips that give the specific requirements for salvation.

8)      Our life, therefore, becomes a platform from which we witness. Unbelievers watch us. We must realize that witnessing is not simply communicating abstract concepts about an abstract God.

9)      Our verbal witness must be one that doesn’t compromise our view of reality. Don’t be sucked into “proving” that God exists. a) Witnessing isn’t a debate and we mustn’t get into an argument over information; b) Our job is to communicate information and to leave the rest to God the Holy Spirit. How we witness is as important as the content of our witnessing. Don’t try to bring someone to salvation through some sort of human viewpoint approach that keeps man as the ultimate determiner of truth. Actually, in witnessing the only real failure is silence. [Gap in recording] ….

10)   …… Don’t worry about problems such as inadequacy, fear of rejection…

11)   ……In various surveys about 15% of all conversions occur through some sort of big event, like a Billy Graham crusade, through a church “revival” or some kind of major evangelistic event; 85% of conversions occur through one person telling another person the gospel.  

12)   Let the Holy Spirit do the convincing, don’t try to badger or beat somebody with the gospel. A series of questions to think about: Ask them a question: Do you have any kind of spiritual belief? Everybody at some level has some kind of spiritual belief, and they may start telling you. Don’t judge, don’t critique, just let them talk. When they get through, ask the next question: Do you believe there is a heaven or a hell? Don’t evaluate anything, just say, Isn’t that interesting. If you were to die today, would you go to heaven or hell? If they say heaven, you respond by saying, On what basis would you go to heaven? The next question after that: If what are believing wasn’t true, would you want to know? They are either going to say no, in which case you just shut up and go on because they are negative—you have done your job, you have tried to create an opening to see if there is any level of positive volition there—you just move on. If they say yes, you pull out your New Testament and open it up to a verse like Romans 3:23 and say, Would you please read this verse? Let them read it. What does that say and what does it mean to you? And let them tell you. Then go to the next verse, Romans 6:23. Remember, God says that he uses His Word. You are just using the Word, you are not telling them anything. Then eventually get to Acts 16:31. What does that mean?  

13)   No two witnessing situations are the same. Don’t try to use a canned approach. Be flexible. Flexibility, like anything in life, only comes through experience. If you never start witnessing to anybody you are never going to develop the kind of experience you need to be able to communicate the gospel in a relaxed manner to unbelievers. So you have to start, and it is always difficult to start. But it will come, just pray about it and God will give you the opportunity. Different kinds of people are going to come across your path. Some are ready, they are primed. Other people you run into are in the process of being prepared.

The challenge for each of us is to recognize that this is our responsibility to witness. We need to start at the starting point which is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. We have to work our from there and understand that God defines what reality is, and reality means that ultimately there is a point of accountability in time. That accountability is going to be at the end of time with the great white throne judgment when unbelievers will stand before God and all they will have with them is their works. It is our responsibility, a mission that God has given each and every believer, to witness. So it is up to us to be properly trained, to apply doctrine and to be involved in that process.

Faith Rest Drill

Faith Rest Drill       RD/Kings/054

STEP ONE: Claim a promise

STEP TWO: Think through the doctrinal rationales embedded in the promise

STEP THREE: Appropriate the doctrinal conclusions

Faith Rest Drll  RD/3 John 011

There are three stages in the faith-rest drill. The first stage is to claim a promise. The second stage is to think through the doctrinal rationale embedded in that promise. Every promise has a rationale, a series of steps or reasoning that goes on inside of a promise. So it is taking the promise, thinking it through (meditation) and pulling out from that promise the rationale that undergirds and strengthens that promise. As we do that what will occur to us in our thought processes are certain conclusions that must shape our thinking and must become real in our mental attitude experience. The third step is to appropriate those doctrinal conclusions. It is easy to say those are the three stages; it is not easy to go through those stages sometimes. There are certain events and certain crises and certain stages in our life when somehow we find it a little easier to use the faith-rest drill on, and then there are other things that seem to strike at the very core of our soul and our thinking and it is very difficult for us to utilise the faith-rest drill, and again it becomes a moment-by-moment, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour procedure that sometimes may go on for weeks or months before we are able to reach that third stage of making the conclusions from a promise real in our experience.

False Systems of Spirituality

False Systems of Spirituality  RD/1 Cor. 023

1)      The most common false system of spirituality that we are familiar with is just legalism. This is technically the idea of using the law, the idea that we are under the Mosaic law, as a means of gaining approval with God.    

2)      Spirituality based on ritual.

3)      Spirituality is based on morality. But spirituality cannot be based on anything that an unbeliever can do, and an unbeliever can be moral. Spirituality goes far beyond human morality. It is the life of spiritual virtue based on the production of God the Holy Spirit.

4)      Spirituality based on Christian service. This is common among many evangelical churches.

5)      Then there is the Pentecostal crowd. They get involved in ecstatics, emotion, and mysticism, and somehow if you have certain experiences or feel a certain way then that is evidence of your spirituality. Yet the Bible never describes spirituality in terms that are defined by emotion or ecstatics.

6)      Then there are those who get into doctrinal churches, people who distort grace and think that all you have to do to be spiritual is know doctrine. They learn a lot of doctrine and they memorize all the verbiage and the technical terms, but they don’t have a clue. There is no grace orientation there.

False Teachers

There are ten things that are denied by the false teachers.   RD/1John/002

   1. They denied a connection between behaviour and fellowship with God. It doesn’t matter what I do, as long as I confess my sins I’m in fellowship. The point of the Christian life, however, is to stay in fellowship. There are the antinomians who deny any connection between behaviour and fellowship: 1:6; 2:29; 3:6, 10.

   2. They denied the idea of personal sin and the sin nature. “They say we have no sin,” John 1:8-10.

   3. They denied the reality of Christ’s sufferings on the cross to propitiate the righteousness and justice of God.

   4. They denied the need to obey the commandments of Scripture, which is ultimately a rejection of the authority of Christ in the every-day life of the believer.

   5. They denied the importance of application of doctrine beyond just a certain academic intellectual or idealised level, 2:6. That was typical of Gnosticism.

   6. They denied the mandate to love one another, 2:9.

   7. They denied the need to confess sin for restoration of fellowship and filling of the Holy Spirit.

   8. The denied the necessity of identifying and removing human viewpoint thinking from the soul and replacing it with divine viewpoint doctrine, 2:15-17.

   9. They denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the eternal second person of the Trinity, 2:2, 21; 5:15.

  10. They denied the reality of the incarnation in 4:2.

False Teachers, Ten Things Denied by

Ten Things that are Denied by False Teachers.

    1. They denied a connection between behaviour and fellowship with God. It doesn’t matter what I do, as long as I confess my sins I’m in fellowship. The point of the Christian life, however, is to stay in fellowship. There are the antinomians who deny any connection between behaviour and fellowship: 1:6; 2:29; 3:6, 10.

   2. They denied the idea of personal sin and the sin nature. “They say we have no sin,” John 1:8-10.

   3. They denied the reality of Christ’s sufferings on the cross to propitiate the righteousness and justice of God.

   4. They denied the need to obey the commandments of Scripture, which is ultimately a rejection of the authority of Christ in the every-day life of the believer.

   5. They denied the importance of application of doctrine beyond just a certain academic intellectual or idealised level, 2:6. That was typical of Gnosticism.

   6. They denied the mandate to love one another, 2:9.

   7. They denied the need to confess sin for restoration of fellowship and filling of the Holy Spirit.

   8. The denied the necessity of identifying and removing human viewpoint thinking from the soul and replacing it with divine viewpoint doctrine, 2:15-17.

   9. They denied that Jesus was the Messiah, the eternal second person of the Trinity, 2:2, 21; 5:15.

  10. They denied the reality of the incarnation in 4:2.

Fear of the Lore

The Fear of the LORD (יְהוָֹה) YHWH RD/1Sam/078

1. The fear of the Lord is critical and foundational to all spiritual growth and the development of wisdom, understanding, knowledge. ; ;

Psa. 111:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; a good understanding have all those who do His commandments. His praise endures forever.”

, “And to man He said, ‘Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding.’ ”

, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.”

2. A profound respect and awe for God’s Person, especially as Righteous Judge, whose will and ways must be followed or face serious consequences.

, “The fear of the LORD leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.”

, “The fear of the LORD prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened.”

3. This respect for the power and authority of God is a manifestation of humility and submission to divine authority.

, “The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom, and before honor is humility.”

, “By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches and honor and life.”

4. The contrast is the arrogant rejection and disrespect for God’s teaching, and instruction.

, “When your terror comes like a storm, and your destruction comes like a whirlwind, when distress and anguish come upon you.

, “Then they will call on me, but I will not answer; They will seek me diligently, but they will not find me.

, “Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the LORD,”

5. The fear of the Lord is to be taught and to be learned.

, “Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD.”

6. The fear of the Lord emphasizes the immediate necessity of knowing God’s Word in contrast to an attitude ranging from ignoring God’s Word to disdaining God’s Word.

, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.”

7. The fear of the Lord leads to long life, development of capacity for life, and great joy.

, “The fear of the LORD prolongs days, but the years of the wicked will be shortened.”

, “The fear of the LORD leads to life, and he who has it will abide in satisfaction; He will not be visited with evil.”

, “In the fear of the LORD there is strong confidence, and His children will have a place of refuge.”

8. God’s Wisdom makes an ethical demand upon our lives: we must choose to obey Him and follow the path of righteousness and justice and depart from evil.

, “The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.

, “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.”

, “In mercy and truth atonement is provided for iniquity; and by the fear of the LORD one departs from evil.”

9. Evil is more than a synonym for sin, it also includes the superficially good deeds we do in our own power, but independent of God.

Figures of Speech

Figures of Speech      RD/Kings 031b

1. What is a figure of speech?

“In each of these examples certain aspects of the statements are not true in their normal sense, but yet the sentences are convey-ing truth. The argument is inadequate (‘it doesn’t hold water’), we are to defend and live in accord with the Bible (‘stand up for the Bible’), we are pleased (‘tickled to death’), Jesus is a substitutionary sacrifice (‘the Lamb of God’). Figures of speech express truths in vivid and interesting ways. Since the Bible has so many figures of speech, it is important to recognize them and determine what they are communicating.”

Roy Zuck

2. The Problem: Little written, little taught.

“There is no even tolerably good treatise on Figures existing at present in our language—Is there in any other tongue? There is no consecutive discussion of them of more than a few pages; the examples brought forward by all others being trivial in the extreme and threadbare; while the main conception of what constitutes the chief class of figures is altogether narrow, erroneous, and unphilosophical. Writers generally, even the ablest, are wholly in the dark as to the precise distinction between a trope and a metonomy; and very few even of literary men have so much as heard of Hypocatastasis or Implication, one of the most important of figures, and one, too, that is constantly shedding its light upon us.”

John Vilant Macbeth, Prof of Rhetoric, UWV

“Applied to words, a figure denotes some form which a word or sentence takes, different from its ordinary and natural form. This is always for the purpose of giving additional force, more life, intensified feeling, and greater emphasis. Whereas to-day ‘Figurative language’ is ignorantly spoken of as though it made less of the meaning, and deprived the words of their power and force. A passage of God’s Word is quoted; and it is met with the cry, ‘Oh, that is figurative’—implying that its meaning is weakened, or that it has quite a different meaning, or that it has no meaning at all. But the very opposite is the case. For an unusual form (figura) is never used except to add force to the truth conveyed, emphasis to the statement of it, and depth to the meaning of it.”

E. W. Bullinger, Figures of Speech Used in the Bible

“Whatever Christian theology means by the impassibility of God, it does not mean that God’s love, compassion and mercy are mere figures of speech. But neither is God’s love simply a disposition evoked in God during the history of man and that belongs only to the economy of salvation. God is love in the sovereign freedom and power of his eternal being, and as such has revealed himself definitively and decisively in Scripture and in Christ.”

Carl F. H. Henry, God, Revelation, and Authority.

“This change is brought about and prompted by some internal action of the mind, which seeks to impress its intensity of feeling upon others. The meaning of the words themselves continues to be literal: the figure lies in the application of the words. This application arises from some actual resemblance between the words, or between two or more mental things which are before the mind.”

EWB

Zoomorphism. “Whereas an anthropomorphism ascribes human characteristics to God, a zoomorphism ascribes animal characteristics to God (or to others). These are expressive ways of pointing up certain actions and attributes of the Lord in a picturesque way. The psalmist wrote, God ‘will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge’ (Ps. 91:4). The readers would think of young chicks or birds being protected under the wings of the mother hen or bird. Job depicted what he considered to be the furious anger of God lashing out at him when he wrote that God ‘gnashes His teeth at me’ (Job 16:9).”

To brood or incubate, Gen. 1:2 A horn, Psa 18:2 Wings, feathers, Psa 91:4; 17:8; 36:7

Zuck, BBI

Anthropomorphism.

An anthropomorphism is the ascribing of human characteristics or actions to God, as in the references to God’s fingers (Ps. 8:3), ear (31:2), and eyes (2 Chron. 16:9), face (Psa 16:11), mouth (Num. 12:8), . Other physical human features ascribed to God are:

Impassibility:

The attribute of God’s being unaffected by anything outside of himself. Those who accept the view that God is impassible hold that he cannot be caused to do or feel anything, because of his omnipotence and perfection. Critics believe that impassibility would be a barrier to genuine loving relations between God and his creatures. See also divine attributes.

“Any Christian who reflects on living with grief has to reflect on living with God in grief; and that immediately leads into the issue of impassibility. I knew the traditional picture: God surveys with uninterrupted bliss what transpires in this vale of tears which is our world. In the situation of my son's death, I found that picture impossible to acceptexistentially impossible. I could not live with it; I found it grotesque. . . .

“Perhaps if I had firmly believed it was the correct picture I could eventually have brought myself to the point where I no longer rebelled against it. But by this time I had already, for more or less theoretical reasons, found the doctrine questionable; this experience pushed me over the edge, one might say. It did more than that though: it led me to reflect on the doctrine much more thoroughly and seriously than I had before. For I knew that in rejecting the doctrine, I was disagreeing with the greatest minds and hearts of the Christian church; I was not, and I am not, willing or even able to do that lightly.

“The picture that comes to my mind is of those sweaters knit in such a way that when you pull on one thread, the whole thing unravels before your eyes. Impassibility is one component in that tightly integrated traditional way of understanding God. My interest in the structure as a whole accordingly led me to become interested in eternity, in simplicity, in aseity (unconditionedness)-and then also in impassibility. Once you pull on the thread of impassibility, a lot of other threads come along. Aseity, for example-that is, unconditionedness... One also has to give up immutability (changelessness) and eternity.” Nicholas Wolterstorff,

“Does God Suffer,” Modern Reformation, 99:45.

Filling/Walking

Filling/Walking “by Means of the HS”      RD/Kings 026

• At salvation, every believer is indwelt and filled by means of the HS.

• Whatever is done in the power of the HS is “gold, silver, and precious stones,” and has eternal value.

• Whatever is done in the power of the sin nature, is “wood, hay, and straw” and has no lasting value. 1 Cor. 3:11–15

God the Holy Spirit is the divine empowerment for :

• To understand, retain, remember, and apply doctrine (Col. 3:15)

• The One who produces Spiritual growth (Gal. 5:16)

• Enables us to use our spiritual gift (1 Cor. 12)

Eph. 5:18, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with [by means of] the Spirit,”

Col. 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

Gal. 5:16, “But I say, walk by [means of] the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

Firstborn

The principal privileges which go to the Firstborn in the ancient world

1) The firstborn is stated to be given by God and to be consecrated to God. , “You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe fruits, and of your liquors: the firstborn of your sons shall thou give unto me.”

2) They stood in honor next to their parents. In other words, all the other children had to respect that firstborn almost as much as they respected their parents. , “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might, and the beginning of my strength, the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power.” So the firstborn had a special place of privilege and respect over all the other offspring.

3) The firstborn had a double portion in the paternal inheritance. They received twice as much simply because they were the firstborn. , “But he shall acknowledge the son of the hated for the firstborn, by giving him a double portion of all that he hath: for he is the beginning of his strength; the right of the firstborn is his.” So the firstborn had a double inheritance. This is important to understand what goes on when we get into the New Testament and start talking about the two different kinds of inheritance that goes to the believer. We are heirs of God under one category and joint heirs with Christ under another category. All believers are heirs of God, but not all believers are joint heirs of Christ.

4) The firstborn succeeded in the government of the family or the kingdom. They follow the father’s footsteps. , “And their father gave them great gifts of silver, and of gold, and of precious things, with fenced cities in Judah: but the kingdom gave he to Jehoram; because he was the firstborn.”

5) The firstborn were honored with the office of priesthood and the administration of the public worship of God. So that the priesthood passed also to the firstborn.

So the firstborn has a special position within the family, and with that special position goes certain privileges and certain responsibilities. And the firstborn should live as if they are the firstborn, recognizing that is their birthright. This plays the backdrop to how the New Testament is going to deal with this particular episode.

Five Characteristics of the Redeemer

Five characteristics of the redeemer that apply to Jesus Christ                          RD/Rev. 109b

 a)      The redeemer was a blood relative of the one who was to be redeemed. Jesus Christ is our blood relative; He is true humanity.

b)      The redeemer must be willing to redeem. Deuteronomy 25:7-10. Christ voluntarily left heaven to pay the price for our sins, according to Philippians 2:5-8.

c)      The redeemer must be able to redeem. He must be able to pay the redemption price. Only Jesus Christ could pay the price of our redemption; only He was perfect and without sin.

d)      The redeemer, the goel, must be free himself from the calamity from which he must free his kinsman. Jesus Christ, because He was free from sin, could pay the redemption price.

e)      The redeemer must act to pay the redemption price. This is what Jesus Christ did.

Five Cycles of Disciplin

Five Cycles of Discipline

1) The first cycle: Loss of health, decline of agricultural prosperity, terror, fear, and death in combat, loss of personal freedoms due to negative volition toward Bible doctrine (Leviticus 26:14-17).

2) The second cycle: Economic recession and depression, increased personal and individual discipline for continued negative volition in spite of the first warning (Leviticus 26:18-20).

3) The third cycle: Violence and breakdown of law and order; severe restriction of travel and commerce (Leviticus 26:21-22).

4) The fourth cycle: Military conquest and/or foreign occupation, scarcity of food (reduced to one-tenth of normal supply), separation of families (Leviticus 26:23-26).

5) The fifth cycle: Destruction of the nation due to maximum rejection of biblical principles (Leviticus 26: 27-39).

Five Points of Introduction on the Significance of Redemption

Four points of introduction on the significance of redemption     RD/Rev. 110b

1)      Redemption is the underlying image of salvation. From the Old Testament to the New Testament the underlying image of what takes place on the cross is redemption. Justification, regeneration, forgiveness are terms that affect the application of Christ’s redemptive work to the individual believer.

2)      The importance of redemption is that a price has been paid. That is what redeemed means. It is that which makes everything else possible because a price has been paid. Because that price/penalty is paid on the cross the Father’s justice is propitiated.

3)      The redemption price is paid in full. We see this in John 19here the last thing Jesus says before He dies is TETELESTAI [tetelestai], “If is finished,” a perfect tense verb indicating a transaction that has already been completed, already finished, and it has results that go on. It was something that in the Greek word would be written on the bottom of a bill, that it was paid, nothing else could be done or added to it.

4)      The redemption price was paid by a perfect human being who alone could die as our substitute.

Five Things about the Hypostatic Union

There are 5 things that we emphasize in Understanding the Hypostatic Union.    RD/Heb.  045b

   1. First of all, Jesus Christ was undiminished deity.  Undiminished means He is never less than fully God.  He has all the attributes of deity.  They are never lessened.  They may not be evident, but they are always fully there.

   2. The second thing that we mean by the hypostatic union is that He is fully human – what it is to make us human. We are almost in a sense subhuman.  Why is that?  Because we have a sin nature.  We aren’t what God originally created in the human race.  We have been affected by evil.  It is part of our nature.

NKJ Jeremiah 17:9 " The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

We have a fallen nature.  So in some sense we are less than what God intended us to be. Jesus Christ as the Second Adam is everything that God intended man to be.  So He is more of a real human being than we are at least when we are unsaved at the point of our birth. So He had full humanity, true humanity and unfallen humanity.

   3. Third His undiminished deity and His full humanity were united in one person forever so they are never separated.  A million years from now we are still going to see the deity of the Second Person of the Trinity localized in His humanity but He will still be omnipresent.  He is still going to be omnipresent as the Second Person of the Trinity, but He is also going to be united with the resurrection body of His humanity.

   4. The product of this union therefore is the unique person of history.  We refer to Him as the theanthropic person from the Greek word theos meaning God and anthropos meaning man joined together in a compound word – the theanthropic person - fully God, fully man, the God Man.  This is the great mystery that Paul speaks about in Colossians 2:2-3.

NKJ Colossians 2:2 that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and attaining to all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ,

NKJ Colossians 2:3 in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

The mystery of God is a hither to unrevealed truth and it’s not the easiest thing to understand.  The mystery of truth is related to both the Father and Christ.

Then you skip down to verse 9.

NKJ Colossians 2:9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily;

That is in Jesus Christ.

   5. The issue isn’t that Jesus Christ was a man and somehow became God.   That is a pagan notion.  That is the idea that the church somehow deified Him.  It is what comes across in the liberal critical analysis of the gospel and what is embodied in the Da Vinci Code.  Jesus was just a man.  It was the church that tried to make Him something else.  He is always eternally God.  It was humanity that was added to His deity.

Forgiveness

FOUR Categories of Forgiveness RD/Heb/156

1. JUDICIAL: Forgiveness directed toward God, where the justice of God cancels the debt of sin.

For all mankind without distinction.

Col. 1:14, “in whom we have redemption [apolútrosis] through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Eph. 1:7, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.”

Col. 2:13, “And you, [when you were] dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, [BECAUSE He cancelled] all [the legal guilt of your] trespasses,

Col. 2:14, “[when He] wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has [completely lifted] it out of the way, [by] nailing it to the cross.”

2. POSITIONAL: Forgiveness directed toward individuals, related to imputation of Christ’s righteousness and justification.

3. EXPERIENTIAL: Forgiveness of the believer’s ongoing sins at confession. (1 John 1:9)

4. PERSONAL: Forgiveness toward others as a reflection of God’s grace toward us. (Eph. 4:32)

Eph. 4:32, “And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.”

Forgiveness [ aphesis, ]

Release, liberation, forgiveness (EDNT);

The act of freeing or liberating or releasing someone from captivity; The act of freeing from an obligation, guilt or punishment; Pardon, cancellation. (BDAG)

Acts 10:43, “To Him all the prophets witness that, through His name, whoever believes in Him will receive remission [forgiveness] of sins.”

Acts 26:18, “to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in Me.”

Forgiveness

Forgiveness RD/Matt/105b

In the past I have taught that there are four categories for forgiveness.

1. The first is what I call forensic forgiveness and this refers to the fact that God's justice was satisfied on the cross, and as points out, at the cross our certificate of debt was cancelled. That applies to all mankind.

2. The second is positional forgiveness when we trust in Christ as savior. We are entered into Christ and we are positionally forgiven and cleansed of all sin so that we can be justified and have eternal life.

3. The third category is the ongoing forgiveness of our sins when we confess our sins, according to . We call this experiential forgiveness.

4. The fourth is the forgiving of one another as a reflection of God's grace toward us. This is relational forgiveness.

Four Branches of Protestant reformation

Four Branches of Protestant Reformation  RD

   1. You have the Lutheran Branch which comes out of Germany and influences the Scandinavian countries as well. 

   2. Then you have the French-Swiss aspect of the Protestant Reformation influenced by people like Henri Bollinger and Ulrich Zwingli and Calvin as well.

   3. They you have the English Reformation.  The English Reformation is heavily influenced by Calvinism.  So you have the English part of the Reformation and the French- Swiss part of the Reformation generally comes under the umbrella of reformed theology.  If you didn’t know what that means, that is where that comes from.  It produced Congregational churches and Presbyterian churches.  It heavily influenced a lot of the theology in the Anglican Church at that time.  It was heavily reformed in its theology.  So covenant theology comes out of that flow.

   4. Then the fourth branch - I said there were four branches of the Reformation.  You had Lutheranism, French-Swiss Reformation, the British Reformation, and the Anabaptist. Anabaptist means second baptism.  The prefix “ana” indicates a second baptism.  Most of those people at the beginning had been baptized in the state church as infants.  They came to convictions that baptism was for someone who was a professing believer in the Lord Jesus Christ – not for infants, but for adults who had trusted Christ.

Four Categories of Sin

Four Categories of Sin:

1. commission,

2. omission,

3. ignorance,

4. cognizance.

Four Different Kinds of Sentences

4 different kinds of sentences.

   1. There were declarative sentences which described or told something about something.  John went to the store.  The car is red.  These are declarative sentences.

     2. An imperative is to command - telling somebody to go to the store.

   3. Then you had interrogative sentences where you had a question.

   4. Then you had exclamatory sentences.

Four Laws in Decision Making

Four laws that are at the core of any kinds of decision making in the area of doubtful things  RD/1 Cor. 044

1)      The law of liberty. This law is really directed toward one’s own self. It has to do with one’s own position in Christ. Galatians 5:1 NASB “It was for freedom that Christ set us free…” This law is a spiritual ordinance directed towards one’s self that emphasizes the believer’s freedom to glorify the Lord. This law confers on every believer the right to enter into or participate in any activity that is not stated to be sinful in the Scriptures and will not cause personal failure in the spiritual life. In 1 Corinthians 9:4-6 NASB “Do we not have a right to eat and drink? … Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife…? … Or do only Barnabas and I not have a right to refrain from working?” It is a right. Furthermore, it is lawful. [10:23] “All things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful, but not all things edify.” It is lawful, i.e. it does not violate any of the mandates of God. [29] “I mean not your own conscience, but the other {man’s;} for why is my freedom judged by another’s conscience?” Paul clearly states the principle that every believer has liberty, freedom, certain rights, and it is lawful. But that doesn’t mean that just because it is our liberty and it is lawful that believers should always do certain things in every situation. The question is that in that in many areas of life the issue of participation or non-participation in an activity is not related to morality, not to spirituality per se, it is not a behaviour, a practice or custom that is prohibited in Scripture, but it has to do with something that is simply a cultural norm.

2)      The law of love. The law of love is directed toward other believers. This is a spiritual law based on consideration for immature believers. 1 Corinthians 8:13 NASB “Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.” This is considering how our behaviour might impact or affect an immature believer. This law places love for the weaker Christian ahead of the law of liberty. This is going to emphasize the fact that even though I have a right to do something it might have an impact on someone in my presence, therefore I am going to choose not to do what I have a right to do in order to help someone else. As an application of impersonal love the believer refrains from participating in a legitimate activity, not because it is wrong but in order to spare susceptible believers from temptation in their area of weakness. A problem with the law of love is that if you take that and push it to its logical extension then you end up saying, well maybe there’s not much I can do because there is always the possibility that somebody out there is going to take anything that I do out of context and use it to justify some sort of sin. So we have to address that because Paul is certainly not saying that. So we have the balance between the law of liberty, what we have a right to, and the law of love which is recognizing its negative impact on some other believer.

3)      The law of expediency. This is directed toward unbelievers. In the law of expediency this is a spiritual ordinance that is based on consideration for the unbeliever, that the believer is going to refrain from certain activities, not because they are sinful but because they may mislead or offend an unbeliever and prevent him from recognizing the true issue of the gospel.

4)      The law of personal sacrifice. This is a spiritual principle directed toward God that involves the abandonment of a completely legitimate function in life in order to more intensely serve the Lord in a specialized capacity. This is the idea that for the time being I am going to give up something that I may have a legitimate right to in order to serve the Lord in a more specialized capacity. It may involve someone who has the gift of celibacy, who could get married but chooses not to get married in order to serve the Lord in a more specialized capacity. The motive underlying this sacrifice is always evangelism and spiritual growth of the individual believer.

Four reasons Why Joshua And Judges are Recording Two Different periods

Four reasons why Joshua and Judges are recording two different periods of time rather than conflicting accounts of the same period of time.    RD/Judges 003

a)      Judges 1:1 says that the book of Judges follows the book of Joshua. It is after the death of Joshua.

b)      In Judges 1:1 we are told that the sons of Israel (the entire nation) enquired of the Lord. This is not a procedure followed in the book of Joshua at all. So there is a new procedure for seeking the will of God. In Joshua the people went to Joshua and God spoke to Joshua.

c)      Judges 1:1 says, “Who shall go up first for us against the Canaanites?” So we see that there is a scene of the individual tribes going in and removing the remaining pockets of Canaanite resistance in their areas.  So each tribe goes to its area and there are still pockets of resistance and they would have to take them out in order to secure their domain. It is a different type of fighting from what we find in Joshua.

d)      In Judges 1:3, “ … “Come up into the territory allotted me.” So we see them taking out individual portions of their inheritance in order to have it divided up and to begin to settle in the land. We conclude from this that Judges is not talking about the same period of time as the book of Joshua. Judges 1:3 presupposes that the tribe of Judah has already received its allotment of land from the major war that has already been fought.

Four Stages of the Roman Empire

Four Stages of the Roman Empire  RD/Rev 194

Past Stages

1. The United Stage —The Roman Empire 2. The Two-Division Stage (East–West)

Future Stages

3. The Ten-King Stage 4. The Antichrist/World Government Stage

Freedom though Love

Freedom through Love  RD/Gal/048

 “For you were called to freedom, brethren; only {do} not {turn} your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

Paul connects two crucial concepts in this passage in a unique way. These concepts are freedom and love. True love is a mental attitude, it is not an emotion. There is an emotional love but that is not what the Scriptures are talking about and we ought not to base any decisions we make in life upon emotion.

   1. The biblical concept of love, especially that which is reflected by the Greek word agape [a)gaph] is a mental attitude love. That means it is essentially volitional, not emotional. Its focus is on what is best for its object. That means we have to clearly define what the object of love is.    2. Liberally, whether we are talking about religious liberalism of political liberalism,—at their core they buy into basic assumptions about the nature of reality that are antithetical and antagonistic to biblical Christianity— at their basic core they put their focus on the wrong object. They put the focus on the national enemy, not their neighbour, not their fellow countryman, not their children, not their grandchildren. All of a sudden we get into a war, as in Vietnam, and the political liberal begins to wail about the victims and how terrible it is to kill the enemy, how we should go easy on them, and all of these nonsensical things, forgetting the fact that we are protecting the freedoms of their neighbours, their children and grandchildren, and future generations. They shift the object of their love to the wrong object. The same thing happens in criminality. Rather than putting their focus on love for the victim of crime they put their focus and their pseudo love on the criminals themselves. What they are basically saying is that man is perfectible, that he is basically good, and they have rejected the Scriptural notion of the total depravity of man, that we are all born sinners and inherently evil.     3. True love in a national context promotes justice for the criminal, protects the victim of crime, defends the freedom of the citizenry from incursions by government or foreign powers, and promotes personal responsibility. It is always the tendency of government to seek to become autonomous and to pull all of the power to itself and to overrun the citizenry. True love defends freedom and promotes personal responsibility.    4. The greatest freedom that we have in the USA is the right to bear arms, to own firearms, and to possess forearms without government regulation or intrusion. The right to bear arms is a fundamental principle of freedom. The Scripture recognises this from a very early stage in the Old Testament but the liberal and the person operating on a human viewpoint mindset rejects that kind of thinking out of hand.    5. Historically, arms control is designed to limit freedom and to promote the tyranny of government. This goes all the way back to what happened in 1 Samuel 13:19 NASB “Now no blacksmith could be found in all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, ‘Otherwise the Hebrews will make swords or spears’.”     6. True freedom must be understood in terms of its original root issue as defined in Scripture. That goes back to the concept of spiritual freedom. The opposite of freedom is bondage. Man lost freedom in the garden when he made a bad decision. That brings volition to the forefront. Adam and his wife acquired a sin nature and were now in bondage to that sin nature. That means they had no choice but to commit sin. Everything they did flowed from the sin nature. All temporal bondage has its roots in the fall of Adam. The more we get away from the spiritual solution the more human society caves in to various forms of tyranny.    7. In the garden of Eden sin destroyed freedom. It began by destroying life. Adam had perfect and unlimited freedom in the garden, he was going to live forever, he had access to the tree of life and he was never going to die. Obviously the first consequence of loss of freedom is to lose the ability to live forever. Secondly, it created a cursed environment. Third, the problem is primarily a spiritual problem, therefore the solution must begin with a spiritual solution. If there is no spiritual solution the political solution will never work. If there is no capacity for freedom and an understanding of true responsibility then any attempt to provide freedom will fall apart eventually. The further we get away from biblical thinking the further we get away from thinking accurately. Spiritual growth provides the capacity for freedom and once that is lost we begin to see the freedoms erode in a culture and society. When the sin nature is allowed to reign uncontrolled its slavery increases. It starts from the sin nature but then when there is the aggregate of unrestrained sin natures, especially among government officials and politicians and their legislative agendas, it destroys the freedom of individual citizens. That is why absolutes and values are integrated to develop any freedom within a nation. If we do not have an understanding of absolutes and are operating on moral absolutes we have already undercut the foundation of freedom in a society. Bondage to sin destroys capacity for life, for happiness, and to appreciate freedom. So the more the sin nature goes unrestrained in society the more the capacity for life and happiness is destroyed and people lose the whole concept of personal responsibility and accountability. They are out for themselves and not for anyone else and this goes right back to the angelic conflict. Unrestrained carnality is the height of irresponsibility, and responsibility is the foundation for freedom.    8. The exodus event is the paradigm for understanding political freedom. Before the Jews were freed politically from Egypt they had to go through a spiritual event which is exemplified in the entire Passover meal. That is why the Passover comes before the exodus. But the people of the exodus generation rejected the provision of God and were constantly fighting against God and did not submit in humility to the authority of God, so they had no capacity to appreciate their new freedom. They constantly wanted to go back to the bondage of Egypt and submit to the slavery of Egypt. They couldn’t handle freedom. They wanted the security of slavery rather than the uncertainty of freedom, because in true freedom they might make the wrong decision and might have to suffer the consequences. When we don’t want to suffer the consequences then we just want somebody else to take care of us. That will destroy life and the soul of the nation. When there is no capacity fro freedom you will exchange freedom for security and personal responsibility for bondage; you want somebody else to make all the decisions for you and to solve all the problems for you and you don’t want to go forward in success. The more you limit the ability to fail—degree of failure, the consequences of failure—the more you will limit the opportunities for success. The problem is sin and that man is inherently evil, and the only solution is the redemption solution at the cross. But at the very core of liberalism is the idea that man is inherently good and that society is basically perfectible. That is divorcement from reality and from there on there is going to be a conflict. That is why the more our society drifts away from the biblical stands and principles of establishment absolutes and it becomes more steeped in moral relativism, and we don’t hold everyone, whoever they are, accountable to the same law then we have slipped into pure moral relativism. The more society drifts apart in these two directions—believers with absolutes on the one hand and unbelievers and carnal believers and moral relativism on the other hand—the more society is polarised and the closer we come to an implosion in the culture and we see the effects of divine discipline and the complete loss of freedom and tyranny.    9. a) Total depravity must be restrained in the populace and in the leadership of a nation. Every person is totally depraved. That does not mean that every person is as bad as they could be, it means that in the totality of their makeup every aspect of their being is equally affected by Adam’s original sin. This restraint is done through law. b) Freedom is earned and preserved through moral courage. If you do not have the courage to fight for your freedoms then you do not deserve to have those freedoms. c) Freedoms are based on absolutes and absolutes ultimately are based on doctrine in the soul. That means that is there is no doctrine in the soul you lose your understanding of absolutes and once you do that it destroys freedom. Remember, Bible doctrine defines reality. Rationalism and empiricism are inadequate to ultimately define reality. d) The loss of biblical absolutes destroy values and virtue. And remember, true love is virtue dependent. If there is no virtue in the soul then love is worthless. e) Virtue and values provide capacity for freedom. When you lose virtue and value freedom is destroyed. f) The only solution to the problem is a spiritual solution. It is not through crusader arrogance, going out and trying to whitewash the devil’s world through political solutions, marches, and all the other things that go along with that; it is through people being converted through the proclamation of the gospel and then believers advancing to spiritual maturity. The only solution that lasts is the spiritual solution because the spiritual solution alone provides the capacity for understanding freedom and personal responsibility, which are necessary for the foundation of freedom. g) We live on the brink of national destruction because we have drifted off course as a nation from our doctrinal roots. 

Freedom, Bondage and the Sin Nature

Freedom, Bondage and the Sin Nature  RD/Gal/042

1.       Man loses his freedom because of the Genesis chapter three curse.

2.       The issue, then, is whether man is foolish or wise. In foolishness man rejects the divine viewpoint solution which is the only basis for freedom. The wise solution is the grace solution and learning everything that God has to say about every category of life. The Scripture says that we are to be “pulling down strongholds,” fortresses of thought. That is where the battle is in the spiritual life ultimately.

3.       Because of sin man has lost his moral freedom. We see from Romans 7 that man knows what is right but he can’t/doesn’t do it.

4.       Romans chapter one gives us the cause and effect. Sin is self-destructive and destructive of everything around us, so that when we sin it starts a chain of events in progress that ultimately culminates in mass destruction.

5.       Sin not only degrades humanity but when the government begins to try to solve the ultimate problem through governmental solutions it simply compounds the problem. If the issue is freedom and the basic problem in freedom is spiritual, and the spiritual solution is rejected as the core of a political theory, then the result is that you have a political system that is operating outside the realm of reality.

What we learn here is that Christ has set us free for all eternity as a believer in Him; this is our position, the reality that we receive at the moment of salvation. But we have a temporal relationship that is based upon a right relationship with God the Holy Spirit, called the filling of the Holy Spirit in Ephesians 5:18. When we commit a sin, even thought that sin was paid for on the cross, it has temporal consequences. It grieves the Holy Spirit, according to Ephesians 4:30; 1 Thessalonians 5:19. We are immediately outside the sphere of fellowship, in carnality, and no longer controlled by God the Holy Spirit. We recover the filling of the Holy Spirit through 1 John 1:9. That is the basis for understanding the mechanics of the spiritual life.

What is happening in Galatia is that they are denying all of this and saying the way you get salvation is through circumcision and the way to stay in a right relationship with God is through moral obedience—God blesses through moral obedience (Mosaic Law). That is ultimately legalism and there are two forms of legalism prevalent throughout all of church history. One is that legalism is salvation, and that comes in one of two forms. The first form is front-loading the gospel. That is, by adding a condition up front, e.g. believe and be baptized, or not only believe but you have to keep on believing, believe and produce good deeds, believe and give money, etc. There are all kinds of faith-plus systems. Then there is back-loading the gospel. That is, salvation is by faith alone in Christ alone but if you have “saving faith” then you are going to produce works that are consistent with that faith; it you don’t have “true saving faith” then there will not be works consistent with that. So the way you know whether or not you have this saving faith or not is by examining the works in you life. You are looking for fruit and you become a fruit inspector. But that is just back-loading the gospel with works, because according to that they are still saying faith plus works. That is not what the Scriptures teach.

What is production? Production is a result. A result is a result of a cause. What causes production in the spiritual life? Two things: the filling of the Holy Spirit plus knowledge and understanding of Bible doctrine. If all a person ever hears is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, the only doctrinal application he can ever make is to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved. The only thing he can apply is salvation. Then people come along and say there’s going automatically be fruit. That is mysticism. Production is the result of application of doctrine and if there is no spiritual life doctrine in the soul or for a person to grapple with and to apply then what this position is saying is that the Holy Spirit is going to make something happen. That is subjectivism; that is mysticism, and that ultimately destroys the power of Scripture.

Fullness of the Gentiles

There are two important phrases we have to understand in relationship to God’s timetable in prophecy.  The first it the time of the Gentiles and the second is the fullness of the Gentiles and we’ll cover these under the doctrine of the times of the Gentiles.  The doctrine of the times of the Gentiles is covered in

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‎Point number one under the doctrine of the times of the Gentiles: it’s based on the Davidic Covenant and the Davidic kings were to be “king of kings.”  The Davidic kings had the potential to be the kings of kings, .  This potential was lost in the ancient world in 605 BC at the time that the Jews were first defeated by Nebuchadnezzar and the first group of captives were taken out and deported to Babylon.  Daniel was one of that group.  All during the period of the monarchy in Israel the Davidic kings were divinely vested with this potential for world supremacy.  However the fact that they violated God’s law and did not obey Him they lost that potential and it will only be restored to regenerate Israel in the millennium.  It is not ended for good because these were unconditional promises God made at the Abrahamic kingdom.

‎ 

‎The second point: in 605 BC potential world supremacy was turned over to the Gentiles and this time period of Gentile supremacy is referred to as the “times of the Gentiles,” in .  The context here is that Jesus is describing the Second Coming when He returns.  Let’s look at an overview of the chapter.  In we have the warning that the days of vengeance are coming.  “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand.  [21] Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city.”  Compare this with you realize that this takes place towards the end of the Tribulation, that at that time Jerusalem, according to is going to be attacked by four armies: the king of the north, the king of the south, the antichrist, the king of the west, and the king of the east with an army of two hundred million is going to be coming across the Euphrates, and they will all converge on Israel at a place called Har Megiddo in the Hebrew, and it’s come down in English as Armageddon, it’s the plain of Esdraelon north of Israel.  But it’s an eight stage battle and it culminates at the valley of Jehoshaphat right outside of Jerusalem.  So what Jesus is warning them is that when they see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then that is the time of the end and they need to evacuate and head for the hills, and get out of Jerusalem just as fast as possible.  These are then called “days of vengeance” in verse 22, “because these are the days of vengeance, in order that all things,” that is all prophecy, “all things which are written might be fulfilled.”

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, “Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people.”  Now it just occurred to me when I read that verse that there’s some confusion going on today that filters to me through various people who are listening to tapes around the country and one area of confusion is the result of some things that are said in the Left Behind novel series written by Tim LaHaye.  Now there are many good things in that, and remember it’s fiction, but nevertheless it reflects his theological understanding.  And he has a rather unusual understanding about what will take place at the rapture.  A lot of people wonder, well if I’m raptured, what about my kids if they haven’t reached the age of accountability.  And LaHaye thinks if your children haven’t reached the age of accountability then all children, all over the world, who haven’t reached the age of accountability will be raptured.

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‎Now there’s a problem with that.  See, if a child dies before reaching the age of accountability, and the age of accountability is the age at which they reach God-consciousness, where they can understand that God exists, where they realize that there’s something greater, that everything isn’t just here, that there must be a Creator, they recognize that there is a Creator, , and we studied which says that God has set eternity in the hearts of man, , “the heavens declare the glory of God, so all those passages indicate that every single person at some point reaches the stage of God-consciousness.  Some may be younger, some older, but at that age where they reach a knowledge that God exists and they’re able to understand and respond to the gospel, then they’re accountable.  They make a decision either to know God or not to know God.  If they’re positive at God-consciousness then God will bring them the gospel.  We see that that’s true with Nebuchadnezzar in this story and God is using all of this to bring Nebuchadnezzar to not only God-consciousness but to an understanding of the gospel and the need to respond in faith to the gospel. 

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‎The problem with LaHaye’s contention is that if a three year old who hasn’t reached the age of accountability at the time of the rapture is not taken at the rapture they don’t lose the opportunity to respond.  If you die at the age of three you’re never going to get that chance again, says that it’s appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.  After you die there is no second chance.  But see, they don’t die at the rapture, and a three year old is going to live and be ten years of age by the end of the Tribulation, if that ten year old survives and during time they can make a decision for or against Christ.  So those children will live.  To me the more interesting question is what’s going to happen to the infants who are on the earth at the time of the Second Coming; are they going to automatically be saved and go into the millennial kingdom.

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‎Well, the Bible doesn’t answer all those questions and too often we have illegitimate speculation and what we need to realize is that God is just, He’s absolutely righteous and whatever he does will be fair and just.  He hasn’t specifically answered those kinds of questions but there is a warning here to mothers who are with child and to those who have babies, that this is a horrendous time of suffering.  , “Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days, [for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people.]”  There’s no indication that just because they are babies and infants that somehow they’re going to be exempted from the horrors of the Tribulation.  So I do not agree at all, I think that LaHaye is on extremely shaky theological ground with that contention of his and there’s no Biblical support for it whatsoever, in fact it violates a number of principles.  So here in verse 23 there’s a warning to those who are there.

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, “And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles,” now this section up to now is a type of what’s going to happen in the Tribulation, which is what I’ve been talking about.  But the specific application of verse 20-24 is 70 AD, when Israel went out under divine discipline in 70 AD, it’s talking about at that time when all of this calamity came, that the children, the babies, those who were nursing were going to suffer all the calamity, all the distress that would come upon them, just as those in the Tribulation will at that time.  They are to flee.  This is used also as a type of what happens at the end of the Tribulation.  So it says when the Romans come, this is talking specifically about 70 AD, “they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”  And that’s where we get the phrase, “times of the Gentiles.”

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‎So tells us that there will be Gentile domination of Jerusalem.  So the question then comes, what is the beginning and what is the end of the times of the Gentiles.  When did the times of the Gentiles begin? 

There are basically two positions;

One is that the times of the Gentiles begins with , with the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 605 BC. 

The other view is it didn’t begin until 70 AD.  

Before we get into the details on that we have to understand that there are three distinct interpretations of the times of the Gentiles.  We did a little introduction to prophecy and we looked at postmillennialism, amillennialism and premillennialism. 

Just to review,

Postmillennialism means that Jesus Christ returns at the end of the millennium.  The Church Age is gradually going to get to a point where the majority of people on the earth are believers, it’s going to be a time of unprecedented blessing, and it is at the end of that period that Christ will return.  We do not believe that’s what the Bible teaches.

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‎Amillennial position teaches that the current age is the time of the kingdom spiritually, and that Jesus is presently in heaven on a spiritualized Davidic throne, and that history will end when Jesus Christ returns and then we’ll go into the eternal state.  That’s the amillennial view. 

Post­millennialists interpret the times of the Gentiles as meaning Gentile possession of the spiritual promises of Israel.  The postmillennialist will say that what this means is Jerusalem represents the Jewish promises, they get into allegory here, they spiritualize it, Jerusalem isn’t physical Jerusalem it just represents all of Israel and it will be trampled down and they will no longer have the possession of the promises of the Old Testament and all those promises will be given to the Gentiles and Israel will never receive them again. 

Amillennialist add something to that; it’s very similar to the postmill view except they introduce the idea of judgment, that there will be judgment, the fulfillment of the times of the Gentiles indicates that Gentiles will be judged in that period of time.

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‎So if we were to diagram this, the postmill view says here we are, Jerusalem equals the promises, they’ve been nullified to Israel and they’ve been given to the Gentiles in this age and everything goes is optimistic and goes through a greater and greater period until Jesus Christ returns at the Second Coming.  Now the amill view is similar but the amill view introduces the idea that there will be a judgment on the Gentiles at the end, when the fullness of the Gentiles comes about. 

The Premillennial view is different.  The premillennial view looks at it this way; that from…and I believe the times of the Gentiles began in 605 BC, we’ll look at why in just a minute, that in 605 BC God had taken Israel out under the fifth cycle of discipline, the Gentiles are given political power and it is through the Gentiles that there will be, through the Gentile empires that there will be political stability on the earth.  The Jews are out under the fifth cycle of discipline, they do return in 535 BC and have…[tape turns]

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‎…always under the over-lordship of Gentiles, they are under the control of the Assyrians, they are under the control of the Romans, later they’re under the control of different Arab tribes after 70 AD, but they still are the source of spiritual blessing because that’s the basis in the Abrahamic Covenant.  The times of the Gentiles go until the Second Coming.  We’ll look at the term “fullness of the Gentiles” in a minute.  Fullness of the Gentiles ends at the rapture because that’s when the Church is evacuated to heaven and then there’s a return to a Jewish emphasis right after the rapture.  But the times of the Gentiles goes from 605 BC to the end of the Tribulation.

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‎Now let’s think through what this means; think through a couple of implications of this. 

First of all, we must distinguish between client nations and covenant nations.  This is not always done.  The term “client nation” itself is not a Biblical term; it is used to… it comes out of modern political parlance, really, just as the Soviet empire expanded into satellite nations into Eastern Europe, those were client nations; the same thing would be true with the United States.  Back during the time of the cold war there were certain nations that were our allies that we supported and then expanded and implemented our policies.  So the term “client nation” was adopted because God is using in human history not the nation He has chosen and called out, the Jews, but sort of second best, He’s operating through these second tier Gentile nations in order to bring about His plans and purposes for mankind.  He doesn’t have a covenant with them; there’s no covenant relationship between God and the Roman Empire, between God and the Frankish Empire, between God and the Holy Roman Empire, God and the United States of America, or God and the British.  There is no covenant there, but God is using those nations to protect Israel and to provide a base for missionary activity.

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‎For example, you go back to Ireland in about the 5th, 6th century AD and you discover that there was a tremendous revival that took place there, there were hundreds if not thousands of Irish that trusted the Lord under the ministry of Saint Patrick, and Patrick wasn’t Irish, he was a Britain and he was captured as a young boy and taken as a slave to Ireland, and then when he finally escaped he went back home, he had training, and he had a desire to take the gospel to the Irish.  Well, in a couple of generations from Patrick there were believers in the north of Ireland who then established a monastery on the island of Iona, out between Ireland and Scotland, and the head of the monastery was a monk by the name of Columba, and Columba taught the gospel, they copied the Scriptures, they translated the Scriptures to put it into the hands of ordinary people and they sent missionaries out into Scotland, back to Ireland, down into England, they sent missionaries to the Scandinavian countries and the gospel went all over northern England from that one little seminary base, that monastery on the island of Iona.  That’s the function of a client nation, that there’s a nation that is going to have believers there, that are going to send out missionaries and be a source of continuing the blessing of the gospel.  But that’s grounded, ultimately, in the Abrahamic Covenant, and in Israel.

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‎So we have to distinguish between client nations and covenant nations, and that Israel is a covenant nation and the Gentile nations are client nations.  If you don’t do that, and Israel is not held as something distinct, but if you think that she’s a client nation just like all the other Gentile client nations, then you’re forced to go into a 70 AD starting point for the times of the Gentiles because Israel has to go out completely before you can have the times of the Gentiles and there can be a shift, because you only have one client nation operating at one time in history.  But if Israel is distinct, and she is, then you can have a client nation existing at the same time as a covenant nation.  And Israel is existing as a covenant nation in the land but not all of them are in the land; remember the northern kingdom was taken out in captivity.  So you have the Hasmonean dynasty taking place during the 2nd century BC and you have Israel in the land during the 1st century under Roman dominion, and then you have a return of Jews to Israel at the present time.  But Israel, throughout all of these various manifestations, where there are Jews in the land and where there is an autonomous nation in the land, they are still there at the blessing of Gentile nations.  If the United States had not supported Israel in 1948 Israel would have been wiped out by the Arabs.  If the United States were not continuing its support of Israel, Israel would be overrun by the Arabs in a flash, but because there are nations, Gentile nations, supporting Israel and protecting Israel, there is a nation in the land but it still under the overlordship of Gentile client nations.

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‎So Israel went out under divine discipline in 605 BC and that started the time of Gentile dominance of Jerusalem.  This is further emphasized in by the statement, “they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot,” this is a present participle of the verb pateo, which means to walk on, to trample, to conquer, to control.  And it is used metaphorically of the idea of control.  And so Israel has generally been under the control, under the dominance of Gentile powers and exists… if there has been any peace, any independence, it’s been under the overlordship of a Gentile power ever since, and it will not end until the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Genesis: Mosses wrote it

The Pentateuch claims Mosaic authorship in passages like ; —“Moses wrote all the words of the law”; 24:27—“The Lord said to Moses, Write these words”; , “Moses wrote down”; , “So Moses wrote this law.” So the Pentateuch claims Mosaic authorship. Other Old Testament books taught Mosaic authorship: , “ … according to all the law which Moses, my servant, commanded you”; , “the book of the law of Moses”; , ; . Not only does the Old Testament teach that Moses wrote the Pentateuch but Christ taught it in ; , . Furthermore, the Jews in their tradition believed this. The Samaritan Pentateuch holds to Mosaic authorship, as does the Palestinian Talmud, Philo in his work on the life of Moses, Josephus held to Mosaic authorship.

Genesis: Who wrote it

RD/Gen/003

It is just a theory that has been made up out of thin air.

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‎So what did they set forth as proof?

The first proof they set forth was that writing wasn’t known in Moses’ time. This argument soon fell out of use due to archaeological discoveries (However in the 1970s this was still being taught in a university classroom). There were discoveries in 1929 at a place called Ugarit, which is in north-west Canaan, that dated to the same period as Moses. It was a rich discovery of documents and literature demonstrating that in that area there was a tremendous amount of writing taking place. Remember that the exodus took place at approximately 1446 BC. One hundred years after that we have what is known as the Armarna correspondence which is variously dated from about 1350 to about 1250 BC. It was letters that were written from people and some leaders in the Palestine area as they were writing back to the Egyptian Pharaoh and reporting on the circumstances and situation in Palestine. So there are many other evidences. Then in the mid-seventies there was a discovery at a place in Syria called Ebla. At Ebla they discovered a rich library in a palace and many of the names were similar to the names found in the Bible. And that dated from a period of about 2100 BC, some 600 years before Moses.

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‎Second, they had an assumption that there were no known law codes that existed as early as the Mosaic law. Therefore this had to be a fabrication because nobody had such a details technical code that early. However, the code of Hammarabi of Babylon was discovered by archaeologists and the date there was between 1700 and 2000 BC, a good 3-400 years before Moses. Furthermore, in Mesopotamia there was the discovery of what is known as the Lipit-Ishtar code which dates to about 1800 BC, 400 years before Moses. In 1945 there was discovered near Iraq an extremely technical law code written in Akadian that dated to about 2200 BC, approximately 800 years prior to Moses.

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‎Their next (third) assumption was that various names for God indicated different authors. In some passages Elohim is used exclusively. In other passages Yahweh is used exclusively. So they supposed that this must indicate different authors. Examples: Elohim, the generic appellation for God is used exclusively in . There is no other name for God in that section, so they would say Genesis one is the writing of the E document, and then starting in 2:4 is the phrase, “This is the history of … in the day that the LORD God [Yahweh Elohim] made the earth and the heavens.” So that is the first mention of the name Yahweh, and they would say that starting in 2:4 there is the introduction of Yahweh, so this and chapter three were part of the J document. This would be their contention. There is just a slight problem here. There are a lot of technical evidences that could be cited. The facts don’t fit the theory because in chapter three verses 1, 3, 5 is the term “Elohim,” Yahweh is not mentioned there. So obviously that doesn’t fit the hypothesis. Then in chapter four the name Yahweh occurs several more times until the end of the chapter, when all of a sudden Elohim alone is introduced again. So that doesn’t fit the scenario. When we come to the flood story in chapters 6-8 the name Yahweh is used sometimes and then there is a switch to Elohim, so it goes back and forth. That doesn’t fit the theory that they have. Then, in Yahweh occurs when God is giving His covenant to Abraham. Yahweh, remember, is the covenant name for God in the Old Testament for Israel; it is the name always associated with the covenant. So Yahweh is in and that would fit the theory. However, in where God introduces circumcision as the sign of the covenant the name that we find there is not Yahweh but Elohim. Clearly there are changes in the text. Why does the author go back and forth between Yahweh and Elohim? These are not accidental or haphazard, but they are there by design and because of the purpose of the author. They relate to the different roles. Furthermore, the Jews knew that there was only one God. In we have the phrase, “The LORD, he is the God; the LORD, he is the God.” The term “LORD” is Yahweh—Yahweh, He is Elohim. They knew Elohim as a generic term but LORD is the name of God, the specific, technical name of the God who is associated personally with Israel and who has entered into a personal covenant relationship with Israel. Elohim is the name that the Gentiles use for God but Yahweh is a term that is specifically associated with God’s relationship to Israel. So when we go back and do an analysis of the use of the terms in Genesis we realize that throughout the Pentateuch Elohim was used when the lessons and material focused on God as the transcendent God, when the emphasis is on God as a more abstract distant God, when the focus is on God as creator of all life, the ruler of all the universe, and the source of life, and when His actions are related to all of mankind. Then Yahweh is used when the lessons and the materials focus on God as the personal, holy, righteous God, when the focus is on the God of Israel who interacts personally in human history, when His specific attributes are in view, when the text is emphasizing the majesty and glory of God, and when the emphasis is on God as a personal God who enters into concrete relationships with man. portrays the transcendent God who created Jew and Gentile alike, but in Genesis chapter two we have the more intimate God who is in the process of creating man and woman in His image and likeness and setting forth the ethical demands of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is the God who is intimately involved with people. Furthermore, an analysis of the names of God in the Scriptures reveal that in the prophets, minor and major, and in the legal literature—Deuteronomy, Leviticus—and much of the poetry except for what is called wisdom literature, Yahweh is used exclusively for God. Elohim is not used alone in those passage, it is always used in conjunction with Yahweh or it is not used at all. Yet in the wisdom literature, like Job and Proverbs, Elohim alone is predominant. There is little mention of Yahweh. Why is that? If we look at all the ancient near eastern literature—Babylonian, Egyptian, Akadian, Persian—this was typical. Whenever they were writing about their particular god they used the technical name of the god, but when they wrote their wisdom literature, which were universal principles of life, they would always use the generic name for their god. This was the standard way of writing throughout the ancient world. Furthermore, this type of distinction continues throughout all Talmudic literature and Rabbinic literature. In that literature which specifically focuses on God and His relationship to Israel they never used the name Elohim, it is always the name Yahweh. So this usage plays out that Elohim is used when the focus is on God and His roles related to all of mankind and Yahweh when the emphasis is on His attributes, His righteous standards, and His specific relationship to Israel. No other ancient near eastern text is ever thought to be compiled in this sort [documentary hypothesis] of patchwork quilt manner. It is ridiculous to even think about applying this to the Mesopotamian creation documents. In fact there, three different deities are mentioned that have double names, just as God has a double name of Elohim and Yahweh, so this is standard operating procedure in ancient near eastern literature with a single author. There is no evidence that the different names for God in the Bible indicate different authors or different sources, but they are used to bring to bear by one author different emphases about the person and character of God.

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‎Another argument (fourth) is used that there are different styles and different vocabularies in different places which indicate different authors. One argument given is a fairly technical Hebrew argument based upon the use of two different words. You have the phrase “so and so begat somebody else.” There are two different ways this word “begat” is written in Hebrew. The first is using a hiphil stem where is uses a word that is transliterated holid. It comes from the Hebrew word yalad. In the qal stem it looks different again. In some of the genealogies you have holid and others you have yalad. So in the documentary hypothesis the liberal comes along and says, See, this shows different sources. But it is really a circular argument. For example, in there is the name LORD of Yahweh used in the account of Cain versus Abel. Then starting in versus 17 down to the end of the chapter there is a genealogy. In it the writer uses the term yalad, so the documentary hypothesist says, See, you find yalad here in Genesis four so that means that this must be a J word. So wherever you find yalad, that is a J document. So wherever we find yalad, that is a J document, so if it is a J document it has Yalad in it and if it has yalad in it, it must be a J document! The premise has not been established at all. Furthermore, the verb yalad in the qal stem occurs a number of times with synonymous meaning of holid, the causative meaning from the hiphil stem in passage such as ; ; ; . So there is an interchangeability between these two words that does not necessitate different authorship.

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‎Then a further argument (fifth) that they try to use is that of two different phrases. For example, “to make a covenant” and to “cut a covenant” in the Hebrew. The liberal comes along and says these are different, but one means to give security to a contractual agreement and the other is used when a covenant or contract is fulfilled, established, brought to completion.

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‎The liberals make an assumption (sixth) that the J document is going to look at God in a certain way and in the J documents God always reveals Himself in an appearing form. So when you find God appearing, that is going to be a J document. If God appears in a dream or a vision, then that is the Elohim document, an E document. And if God just speaks alone without appearing to man or using a dream or a vision, then that is a P document.

These are hard and fast assumptions that these scholars make. But the theory never fits reality. , “After these things the word of the LORD [Yahweh] came unto Abram in a vision.” But wait a minute! Only the Elohim document has God appearing in a vision! So it doesn’t fit. , “And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake.” Here Yahweh appears at night, but it is Elohim who is supposed to appear at night! So now we have another verse that doesn’t fit the theory. In this case the critics just take the verse out and say it shouldn’t be in the Bible at all! Then in , “And, behold, the LORD stood above it, and said, I am the LORD God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac.” Here is the Lord appearing. It is Yahweh who is supposed to appear, but this is Elohim, “the God of Isaac.” But the liberal comes along and says obvious this has been conflated, and there are really two statements, so they take out their scalpel and cut the verse in two and completely rewrite the verse so that it fits their theory.

Gnosticism

What is Gnosticism?    RD/1John/003

1.       It is difficult to define because it attached itself to various religious groups and absorbed religious ideas from just about everybody. It could take many forms. It primarily merged ideas from Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Platonism and oriental mysticism.

2.       Gnosticism did not exist as a full-fledged system until the middle of the second century AD.

3.       Gnosticism had two central beliefs. First, there was a belief in dualism. Ultimate reality was comprised of good and evil. We see dualism today in Buddhism and in eastern religions. There was belief in a secret code of knowledge: that somehow if I learned this secret knowledge I will be able to overcome life in the physical plain.

4.       Gnostics believed that matter was evil and the spirit is good. Therefore they had a problem explaining how a good God could create an evil world.

5.       In Gnosticism there is no necessity for an atonement. It is just a judicial penalty that the human Jesus had to put up with but the spirit of Christ disappeared or left the body before the cross because there is no way that the physical death could be related to the problem of evil.

6.       In Gnosticism true knowledge comes through intuition. They just had these intuitive insights into the nature of reality, therefore they knew what truth was. They had this experience with gnosis, whereas in Christianity knowledge comes through the revelation of God that he has spoken into history through mankind, that He has directed men through the Holy Spirit in the process of inspiration so that His will and His Word would be accurately recorded without error in the original documents.

7.       Gnosis means knowledge and simply relates to an academic and abstract knowledge which in itself becomes an object of worship. That is why we must always guard against making knowledge of Scripture the end-all of the Christian life. It is not; it is the filling of the Holy Spirit plus the knowledge of doctrine plus the application of doctrine that produces spiritual growth.

8.       Gnosticism also has many parallels in modern society. What we see in the ethical system among the Gnostics is that they looked at the life of Jesus as something of a myth, so that in the early church they mythologised the life of Jesus. In some places like Corinth and Colosse they worshiped intermediate spirits, demons and angels. They also tried to demythologise the Scripture just to get the heart of who the real Jesus was and what the secret Gnostic teaching was in the Bible.

9.       That has parallels in 19th century religious liberalism. That means that much of modern Christianity has been rendered vulnerable to the mystical insights of new age methodology which has come across especially in the more charismatic wing of Christianity because they claim to be open to the Spirit. But the failure in Pentecostal theology is to make a distinction between the intuitive insights of a Muslin or a Buddhist and their intuitive insights, and if we look at the Word of God when God reveals Himself to man, even if it is subjective, there is always objective verification; it is testable and verifiable. That is why Jesus performed the kind of miracles that he did. He gave sight to a man who was born blind. There were the healings of people who had leprosy. These had constitutional defects they could not have any psychosomatic root or solution.

Goal of the Christian Life

Goal of the Christian Life

‎‎‎‎1)      The goal of the Christian life is the character of Christ. We are not to be conformed to this life but conformed to the image of Jesus Christ—Romans 12:2. That comes about through the renovation of our thinking. This is exemplified in the production of the Holy Spirit in Galatians chapter five. The fruit of the Spirit means production. The spiritual life when we are under the control of the filling of the Holy Spirit and applying doctrine results in beginning to transform our character into the character of Jesus Christ. The image of Christ is formed in us. That is the direction of spiritual maturity. ‎‎‎‎  ‎‎‎‎2)      This is one of the reasons Christ died as a substitute for us on the cross. He did not die for you and for me so that we could live life on our terms. He died for us so that we could be transformed into His character eventually so that we could be successful witnesses in the angelic conflict. 1 Peter 2:24 NASB “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness [application righteousness, production righteousness]; for by His wounds you were healed.” ‎‎‎‎  ‎‎‎‎3)        Production righteousness is spelled out as the goal of divine discipline and the purpose of passing testing in Hebrews 12:11. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” The same thought is reiterated in Ephesians 5:8-10 NASB “or you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light {consists} in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.” ‎‎‎‎  ‎‎‎‎4)      The mandate, therefore, is to produce righteousness. 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 Timothy 6:11. “But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance {and} gentleness.” These are to be the priorities in the spiritual life, the goal of a transformed life, manifesting the character of Christ under the filling of God the Holy Spirit. ‎‎‎‎  ‎‎‎‎5)      Production righteousness is the result of the renovation of the thinking based on Bible doctrine. Don’t get the cart before the horse, so don’t go out and try to morally try to renovate your life. The goal is to renovate your thinking; it is change from the inside out. It is not moral renovation through the energy of the flesh. 2 Timothy 3:16 gives us the mechanics. NASB “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”  

God and Man in Genesis

God and Man in Genesis

by Dr. Robert L. Dean Jr.

The book of Genesis teaches us many things about God as Creator of Man, as the One of whom man is the image and about the nature of man. The foremost thing taught about God in Genesis is: The God who created all things and sustains all things is the same God who created Israel and sustains Israel through all her travails.

The Names of God in Genesis

The names of God in Genesis reveal much about His character and His attributes. Names for the Hebrew are not simply terms of designation but are terms of description and reveal the nature of the object named.

1. El Elohim El is the standard, or generic name in Semitic Languages for deity, for god. Elohim is the plural, often said by scholars to be the plural of majesty.

2. YHWH, the sacred tetragrammeton, the personal name of God related to His Covenant with Israel. So when the name YHWH is used this would have particular meaning to the Jew. Although God does not reveal the meaning of this name until Ex 3:14. This is a form of the Hebrew verb, hayah, meaning "to be, to exist" and the name of God refers to His self existence. He is the self-existent One. This name is specifically associated with God in His covenant relationship with Israel.

Ex. 3:14 And God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM"; and He said, "Thus you shall say to the sons of Israel, "I AM has sent me to you."

3. YHWH Elohim, Lord God.

4. Lord God Most High, El Elyon, "Most High", Gen. 14:18, 19, 20, 22.

The name emphasizes the exalted status of God, His overwhelming power, His supreme majesty. It was the sin of Lucifer to be like the Most High God. It is Elyon who is the place of shelter, the rock in the midst of adversity, our ever present help in time of trouble. It is Elyon, who has the deepest concern for Zion,

Psa 46:6; 87:5

Psa. 47:2 For the LORD Most High is to be feared, A great King over all the earth.

Psa. 97:9 For Thou art the LORD Most High over all the earth; Thou art exalted far above all gods.

Psa. 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty [Shaddai].

Psa. 91:9 For you have made the LORD, my refuge, Even the Most High, your dwelling place. \

Psa. 78:35 And they remembered that God was their rock, And the Most High God their Redeemer.

Genesis Overview, Names for God

Possessor of Heaven and earth, qoneh, owner, possessor from qanah, to get, acquire, purchase, own.

5. El Rai, Gen. 16:13, God Who Sees, i.e., knows, the future (Hagar after God\rquote s prediction about her future).

6. El Shaddai, Gen. 17:1; 35:11; God the Almighty. This title is used 48 x in the Old Testament. Most often in Job (31x). The LXX translates this with pantokrator, all powerful and it emphasizes God's Omnipotence, His ability to perform whatever He desires. The Rabbi's analyzed the word as the one who is self sufficient.

7. El 'olam, The Eternal God, The Everlasting God, Gen. 21:33; Emphasizes God\rquote s eternality. God has neither beginning nor ending.

8.YHWH Yereh, or Jehovah Jireh in the KJV; Gen. 22:14, The Lord Will Provide. From the verb raea to see, this is related to El Rai, but the emphasis here is on God seeing our need and meeting our needs.

9.YHWH the God of the heavens, Yhwh Elohim Hashamayim, Gen 24:7; Emphasizing God as the ruler of the heavens and thus ruler of the earth and the affairs of man.

10. El Elohe Israel, God the God of Israel, Gen. 33:20 \

11. Ro'h, 'eben Israel, The Shepherd, the Rock of Israel; Gen. 49:24 This emphasizes God in His role as leader and protector of Israel.

So what did Moses teach the Jews about God and what has he taught us.

1. That God is a living God who is deeply involved with His creation.

a. He is eternally existing, distinct from the creation (1:1) in contrast to all other cosmogonies, gods, and myths.

b. He interacts with man, He speaks, sees, hears, rests, etc. Gen. 1, 2, 3, 17, 18.

c. He creates mankind as a reflector of Himself, Gen. 1.

d. He enters into the human arena with a human form and human acts, 12, 18, 32

(This shows the divine initiative of grace).

e. He reveals Himself. He is not hiding from man but seeking man, saving man, disclosing and revealing Himself to man.

2. God is Sovereign

1. He is called the "Most High" God.

2. He is the Creator of everything.

3. He names some things and individuals and determines the limits, boundaries,

nature. They are what they are because God made them that way and decreed those limits.

4. God sets forth mandates and prohibions for all things.

5. God brings about judgment in the curse of sin, the flood, and at Babel (3, 6-8, 11); Sodom (18-20).

6. God prophecies the future indicating His control of human history, 15, 46.

7. He disposses people of property, He gives Canaan to His people, 12, 17.

8. He promises Kings to Sarah, 17.

9. He controls peoples dreams, Abraham's, Gen. 15; Jacob, 28, 31, Joseph, 37, 40-41.

10. He establishes and removes people in political power; 41.

11. He tests people, 22.

12. He rules over nations, economics, and life, 40-41.

13. He chooses whom He will bless.

God is Omnipotent

1. He creates the heavens and the earth

2. He creates mankind

3. He prevents Enoch from dying

4. He controls the time, duration, and extent of the Flood

5. He protects Abraham, 15

6. He controls the womb, opening and closing the womb. 20, 21, 25, 30

7. He controls fertility of the flocks, 30

8. He cripples Jacob with a touch, 32

God is Righteous and Just

1. He punishes disobedience with death

2. He announces the judgment or curse for sin

3. He punishes Cain for murder

4. He destroys the earth because man is evil

5. He scatters the nations because of their rebellion

6. He curses and blesses people due to how they treat Abraham's seed

7. He refuses to judge the innocent along with the guilty.

8. He treats the Kings of the earth justly, Abimelech when Abraham tells him

Sarah is his sister.

9. He protects and vindicates His people, -Rachel, Leah, Jacob in his work for Laban.

10. He made things right for Joseph.

God is Gracious

1. He provides everything for mankind in the perfect environment of the Garden.

2. He provides covering for sinners despite their disobedience and salvation and life for mankind.

3. He protected Cain from avengers.

4. He gave grace to Noah and the earth.

5. He remembered Noah, 8, and Abraham, 19

6. He provided water and protection in the wilderness for Hagar, 16, 21

7. He preserved the righteous in the covenant, 19

8. He intervened when humans failed, 12, 20, 26

9. He freely established His covenant and blessed deceptive Jacob, 28

10. He sent angels to watch over and protect Jacob, 28, 32

11. He gave prosperity to Jacob, 33

12. He blessed Egypt with the future knowledge of the famine and provided Joseph to lead them through the crisis, 39ff.

Regarding Mankind we learn:

1. Man is created with a mortal body fromed from the dust of the earth.

2. Man's immaterial nature comes directly from the breath of God.

3.HL = BL + SL

4. Man is in the image of God, which refers to function, fellowship, service, obedience and administration.

5. The man and the woman are to complement each other.

6. Man is created perfect but his disobedience destroys that perfection and horrendous consequences upon himself and the universe brings

7. Man how has a disposition toward evil, rebellion, self sufficiency and autonomy.

8. Mankind is in desperate need of a savior.

God's care of israel

God miraculously took care of Israel .    RD/Heb. 33b

General structure of events at this time

   1. There were 10 plagues to deliver or redeem or save (Those words are used in various passages.) the Jews from slavery in Egypt.  Each one of the plagues became increasingly more horrific for the Egyptians.    2. The final plague was the angel of death.  God said that this would be the final plague.  The angel of death would come and pass over or go through the land and the firstborn of every household would die.  However if someone were to take a lamb that was without spot or blemish and sacrifice the lamb and spread the blood on the door posts of the house, then the angel of death would pass over that house.  That is the origin of the word Passover.  It goes back to the event where the angel of death passed over the house.   So the households where there were believers trusting God to deliver and save them from that event, they would take a lamb without spot or blemish and sacrifice it and put the blood on the sides of the doorposts and across the top and a picture of how Christ would come as the lamb of God to take away the sin of the world.  If you were to connect the dots you would have a cross.  It is a type of the cross and it is a picture of how Jesus Christ would come as the Lamb of God to take away the sin of the world.  So anybody who trusts in the lamb at the Exodus event would not experience death in their household.  In the same way anyone who trusts in Christ as their savior has eternal life and will not die.  In the final plague the angel of death would take the life of the firstborn.  For those who applied the blood of the lamb there was the Passover.  This is described in Exodus 10 and Exodus 11.    3. As a result of that and the loss of his first born, the pharaoh releases the Jews from slavery.  He just about commands them to leave the land.  So they depart but he has second thoughts and starts to pursue them. They get their back up against the Red Sea.  In the Hebrew it is actually the Reed Sea so we don’t know its exact location.  It’s not identical what you see on a map when you see the Red Sea.    4. God led the people by way of the Reed Sea when they had their back up against the water, no place to go.  Then pharaoh and all of his chariots have them trapped. They were chasing them.  The people panicked and complained to God.  God delivered them. Throughout this time God is guiding them with a pillar of cloud by day and of pillar of fire at night.  Think of yourself as a Jew.  I want you to put yourself in their position. What are you are seeing empirically on almost a daily basis?  You are seeing the miracles of God.  All through these consecutive plagues you are seeing God’s judgment on the Egyptians because these plagues are not affecting the Jews in Goshen.  It is selective.  So their animals are protected.  Their flocks, their herds are protected. Their sons are protected by the blood of the Lamb.  So it’s clear that God is protecting them.  Once they are released and they are going through the wilderness, there is this miraculous supernatural guidance that takes place.  You could stand there and see the cloud during the daytime and the fire at night.    5. The Pharaoh pursed them.  The people are complaining to Moses.  “Why did you bring us out here to be destroyed by Pharaoh?  He’s going to wipe us out.  We are all going to be killed now.”  It shows that despite the fact that they see these miraculous events on a day to day basis, as soon as adversity comes, they start complaining groaning and griping to Moses and to God.  They don’t trust Him.  But God rescues them anyway by parting the Red Sea.  So they escape by God’s miraculous deliverance. Now that must have been an awesome thing to see.  The wind comes and blows the water back.  Instantly the ground is dry.  Now that must have taken some time to get 2 ½ to 3 million people across the Red Sea and then to the other side.  Then pharaoh’s army pursued them.  God stopped the wind and the waters came back and wiped out pharaoh’s army.  It was a tremendous thing to see.    What’s the people’s response? Well, they were trusting God at this point.  We will come back to that in a minute.      6. From the Red Sea they spent three days in the wilderness of Sur.  So they have to move through the wilderness for three days.  They arrive at a place called Marah which is from the Hebrew word meaning bitterness.  There the waters are bitter, probably some sort of alkaloid substance that has made the water bitter.  What did the people do?  They start groaning and complaining again.  They put the Lord to the test.  The Lord had Moses throw a tree into the water to make the water sweet.  So Moses takes his tree and throws this tree into the water and all of a sudden it is drinkable.  There is a lot of water here.  This is not some small well.  This is a huge watering hole where the water has turned alkaline.  Now again this is described as a test.  God is testing them.  These are various adversities that the people are encountering along the way.  Of course the purpose of a test is to reveal the doctrine that is in their soul.  With them it is the lack of doctrine in the soul and their failure to trust the Lord.      7. From there they go to a place called the 12 Palms.  Then they pass from there on to the wilderness called Sin.  That is not sin that you think of in terms of disobedience to God.  That is the short form for Sinai.  In modern times we would probably call this the wilderness of Sinai down there in the Sinai Peninsula.  A third time they complain.  They start griping and moaning about the food.  “God there just isn’t enough food here.”  So God provides manna in Exodus 16:2f .  Not only that, He also tells them that in the evening He would bring them quail.  In the morning they would have manna.  I like to think that manna would taste like a good hot Shipley donut.  It was fresh every morning and it was good.  People who don’t live in Houston have no idea what I am talking about.  But if you are a native Houstonian and you ever move away from here you know what it is like to come back and have a nice Shipley donut.  I used to wake up some mornings when I was in Connecticut and my mouth would water.  I couldn’t wait to get back to Houston and have a Shipley donut.  It got kind of boring after awhile because day in and day out they had the same thing for breakfast.  So once again they complained.    8. As they continued on their journey to Sinai, they came to the next place called Rephidim.  Now there is another test related to water.  Notice how many of these tests relate to logistical grace provision – food, water and daily sustenance. The people complained again.  We read in the text that they were testing the Lord.  Exodus 17:3  It is at this place that two names crop up that are important for understanding the long range history of Israel because they always go back to this event.  This place is called Massah and Meribah.  Massah comes from the Hebrew word that means despair.  The LXX translates it with the Greek word peirasmos.  It is the Greek word for testing or temptation.  It is a place of testing.  God is testing them with the fact that there is no water.  Another word that is used to describe this place is Meribah.  Meribah means a place of strife or contention.  The LXX translated this with the Greek word loidoresis a place of reproach abuse or reviling.  So Massah indicates the fact that God is testing them and Meribah reveals their response.  They were complaining and griping and contending with God over the fact that they didn’t have any water.  God at that point directs Moses in Exodus 17:3 to strike the rock in order to get water.  He is to strike the rock in order to get water.  He is to take his staff and to hit the rock to get water.  The text simply says that he did it.  He took the staff and he struck the rock and out came water.  Now this must have been a pretty significant flow of water.  This isn’t like going out in the back yard and turning on your garden hose.    A garden hose wouldn’t do a lot for 2 ½ million people.  This is a significant flow of water.  There is a river coming out this rock that is going to flow out into the desert.  It would provide enough sustenance for all the people.  This is a major miracle.  Think about what the Jews have seen.  You are one of these 2 ½ million people and you are going through the desert and you have already seen the ten plagues in Egypt.  You have had your back up against the Red Sea.  You have seen God deliver you miraculously at the Red Sea.  You have seen the daily provision of manna every morning and the quail every night.  You have seen God turn the water that was bitter into water that is now pure.  Now you have come to Massah and Meribah and God is going to provide water out of a rock.  Day after day almost, they are experiencing God’s gracious provision in phenomenal ways.  Yet they continue to complain.    9. After they leave Meribah and they are on their way to Sinai, they have a problem.  They immediately run into one of the most hostile groups of people in the ancient world.  This is a marauding band of terrorists. The size of the Amalekite hoards was quite large – several hundred thousand.  Ancient records indicate that they migrated across the northern part of what we call Saudi Arabia today.  They were moving in the direction of Egypt.  Some people think that these are the Hyksos that eventually after this battle move on into Egypt and wipe out what is left of pharaoh’s army.  It has already been decimated.  The Egyptians were in a state of extreme weakness after losing their crack troops in the Red Sea.  That’s another story.  The Amalekites are constantly a problem for Israel up until David finally defeats them.  Saul almost wipes them out in I Samuel 16 but he doesn’t do a full job.  For that he is punished.  That is the episode (I just love it.) that Samuel lops the king’s head off.  The Bible is so vivid.  I just love these images.  People today in political correctness wouldn’t put any of this fun stuff in the Bible.  So God gives them this great victory.  This is the place where God tells Moses that as long as he raises his arms the Jews will have victory.  But if he drops his arms then they will lose.  So Aaron stands on one side and Hxxx stands on the other side they prop his arms up.  He would hold his arms up for awhile and the Jews would win.  It is almost like a football game. Things are going this way and then his arms get tired.  Then the Amalekites are winning and he picks them up and it goes the other way.    Finally they prop him up so the Jews have victory.  It is another picture of God’s miraculous deliverance.  Here is one of the worst most evil most vicious experienced military forces in the ancient world that come across a bunch of ex-slaves that couldn’t fight their way out of a paper bag.  No military training and very little organization yet they are defeated because the battle is the Lord’s and the Lord gives them victory.  The picture that I want you to see is that there is adversity after adversity and what happens?  God provides the solution.  What do they do every time they face the adversity?  They gripe and complain. I know that it doesn’t remind you of anybody that you know, but every now and then it reminds me of a few people that I know.   Remember it is only a test.  It’s only a test.   10. Then after defeating the Amalekites they come to Sinai.  That is where they hear the voice of God delivering the law.  If they would have had one of those Olympus digital recorders like I have in my briefcase, they could have plugged it into their laptop and recorded the voice of God in MP3 and preserved it for posterity. This isn’t something that they are hearing in their heads.   It is no some subjective experience that in their morning devotions.  God spoke to them in their heart.  That’s not what is going on here.  They hear the voice of God.  It scares them to death.  They are so fearful that they tell Moses that they can’t handle this.  They tell Moses to go up the mountain to get the rest of the law because they were scared to death to even hear the sound of God’s voice.  So there is empirical evidence of God’s relationship with them.  While he is up on Sinai they complain again and they fall right back into carnality.  Aren’t they a lovely bunch?  They aren’t any different from the rest of us.   11. They rebel by having Aaron build the golden calf.  They worship the golden calf.  God comes down and there is another episode where God disciplines those who worship the golden calf.  That’s in Exodus 32:1-35.  Then they move out from Sinai to Kadesh Barnea and the land that God graciously promised them because He gave it to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.   12. Then we come to Numbers 11.  As they are approaching the land there is this episode outside the camp where the people start complaining again.  God punished them with this series that appears to be grass fires and brush fires that surround the camp.  It seems to threaten them with destruction.  So they immediately turn to Moses and cry out for deliverance.  Moses prays and God stops the burning.  This place is called Taborah.  Numbers 11:1-3.  Not much is said about that particular incidence.  It is another instance where they are complaining about God’s provision.     13. Then they start complaining about food again.  They complained about food every time they turned around.  They wanted to go back.  The Egyptians must have had tremendous cuisine at that time because the Jews wanted to go back and have the tasty meats, leeks, garlic, and seasonings.   It was sort of like when I was living in Connecticut I was always wanting Mexican food.  You couldn’t get good Mexican food up in New England.  So I was always complaining that we couldn’t get good Mexican food.  Then I would think about this episode.  They would complain about the food.  God graciously supplies food for them.  It was an overabundance of quail.  They all get sick.  In the process Moses recognizes that there is an administration problem so God gives him authorization to establish a chain of command to delegate various responsibilities to various leaders.    The people become ill because of their hunger lust.   14. Just after that Miriam and Aaron lead a little rebellion against Moses. God zaps Miriam with leprosy.  Some sort of bacteria that starts eating her skin away.  She becomes a lovely sight.  Almost instantly within a nanosecond Aaron repents.  He confesses and gets right back with God before it hits him.  Once again Moses intercedes and prays.  God says He will relent on Miriam but she must be outside the camp for a week.  It is another instance of the people rebelling against God’s provision of leadership.   15. Then you come to the major failure which is what took place at Kadesh Barnea. They are on the southern border of the Promised Land.  This is it.  This is the big event.  So God tells them to send in spies – one spy from each of the 12 tribes.  They were to go on a long range reconnaissance patrol and find out what the lay of the land was – not to see if they could take it as I pointed out last time.  God said, “I have given this land to you.”   But 10 of them don’t know how to exegete the Word of God and they don’t know how to interpret it literally. So what they hear is God telling them to go into the land to see if they can take it.  So they come back wining and complaining and thinking that they can’t do it.  There are giants in the land.  There are too many people.   Their cities are all fortified. They don’t realize as we learned later from Rahab that the inhabitants of the land know all about how God brought them out of Egypt They know all about the Red Sea. They know everything that has been going on in the wilderness.  The people in the land are scared to death that they are getting ready to get completely wiped out and destroyed by the God of the Jews.  But the Jews have no trust in God and they wimp out.  So God finally swears at that point as we saw last time that this generation will not enter the land.  It is an accumulative effect.  There has been disobedience and complaining and grumbling all the way along.  It is not over yet.   16. There are two more failures that occur.  There is the rebellion led by Korah, Nathan and Abiram covered in chapters 16-22 which God has to discipline greatly.  God has to kill several thousand of people in that rebellion.    17. Then the last rebellion is the sin of Moses and Aaron.  Because Moses and Aaron disobeyed God in the same way that the rest of the nation has, God is going to punish them the same way.  They are going to be prohibited from going into the land.  In this particular incident they do not have water. Moses goes to God and God says to speak to the rock.   Instead of speaking to the rock he comes back to the people and he gets angry.  He speaks out of anger.  That is not what happened in Exodus.  Exodus says that he was to strike the rock and he struck the rock.  Here he gets angry.  He accuses the people.  That is not what God told him to do.  He speaks of himself and Aaron with the pronoun “we”.  He implies that it might not happen by putting it in a subjunctive case. It casts doubt on whether God will actually provide the solution.  It makes it look like it is up to him – Aaron and himself - rather than God.  The way that he structures his statement implies that it might not happen.  Then he disobeys God.  Instead of speaking to the rock, he strikes the rock.  But God in His grace still provides the water.  There are consequences for his sin and failure.  They are prohibited from entering into the land.

Golden Alter

Where is the Golden Alter of Incents RD/Heb/141b

The apostle begins (the writer begins) by saying:

NKJ Hebrews 9:1 Then indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service and the earthly sanctuary.

NKJ Hebrews 9:2 For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;

Now one question that was posed to me is why does the writer mention it this way because the table and the bread are really two separate things.  But what we have is a sense of 3’s many times in the Tabernacle and here he maintains the 3’s by talking about the table and the showbread separately - which were the lampstand and the table and the sacred bread.  This is called the holy place, literally the holies.

Then verse 3 says:

NKJ Hebrews 9:3 and behind the second veil,

That’s where we get into a problem.

the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,

NKJ Hebrews 9:4 which had

There we have a participial form of the verb of to have or to hold indicating what is there.

You can’t go into the language of that participle and say, “Well, there’s some unusual nuance there that means it’s really some place else.” 

You trace through this and I’ve done this.  I’ve have traced through the use of this verb echo in Hebrews and when it’s used in the participial form it indicates that something is there.

So, it is saying:

the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

NKJ Hebrews 9:5 and above it were the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail.

Now where the author is going to go from here has to do with the Day of Atonement; but it raises the question because all of us have seen these pictures and schema plans of the Tabernacle that look something like this.  You have the Tabernacle proper even though in Hebrews here it refers to both of these as tabernacles or dwelling places.  You have the division of the inner sanctum which is called the Holy of Holies there to your left and on the right the holy place. The entry - you would be coming in from the right side which is from the east.  You would come into the holy place.  On your left is the menorah; on your right is the table of showbread.  All the pictures that we’ve seen and that I’ve used on the series on the Tabernacle - you would then have the golden altar up next to the veil which is depicted by the purple line dividing the two rooms.  Then you have the Holy of Holies with one piece of furniture in there - the Ark of the Covenant.  Now that’s the way we’ve always looked at this.

But, if you’re standing outside in the holy place (which you have to be when you use the term “behind the veil is the Ark of the Covenant”)…so you’re on the other side of the veil.  The writer of Hebrews is writing from this perspective where he says “behind the second veil”. The first veil is the outer curtain - the entry way into the holy place.  Behind the veil (the inner veil) having (is the holy place) in its possession within the room (the typical normal use of that language)…you have the golden altar of incense and the Ark of the Covenant.  So that doesn’t fit this depiction.

It would fit though this depiction.  In this floor plan I’ve moved the altar inside the veil so that it is directly in front of the Ark of the Covenant.  I think that’s how it was in the Tabernacle and also in the Temple (in Solomon’s Temple.)

Now this raises a number of questions that people have had over the years.  This is considered one of the big problem passages, trying to solve this problem in Hebrews.

The first solution…there are four solutions that are offered when you read the literature and I’ve read a lot more and had discussions with several people.  The first solution (which is one we automatically reject, but we have to state it because that’s one that you  find among liberals) is the writer of Hebrews just made a mistake.  So there are those who say he was an Alexandrian Jew or he was a Jew in the Diaspora somewhere else and he wasn’t familiar with the layout in the Temple.  This is really an absurd solution.  I think last time I mentioned Franz Delitzsch and his commentary on Hebrews…actually quotes somebody much earlier, an 18th century writer who says this guy has to be abysmally ignorant to think that he made that kind of mistake.  No Jew who knows anything about the Tabernacle or the Temple would make such a mistake as to put the altar of incense inside the Holy of Holies.  So he just can’t be making that kind of mistake.

But we would reject it on the grounds of inerrancy and infallibility - that the writers of Scripture don’t make mistakes because the Spirit of God superintended the writers of Scripture so that He made sure that what they wrote was guaranteed to be free from error.  There is no textual problem or anything like this.

Some people have said, “Well, what about the preposition behind the veil?”

Meta is the preposition.  You just don’t have any wiggle room there.  It means...it’s used in a locative sense indicating behind or after or on the other side of.  So we really can’t figure out some sort of alternative there that’s hidden in some cryptic use of the Greek.

The second solution that’s offered…and this is one that will come out of the King James Version.  A lot of people who spent their years (early years) just reading the English text of the King James because in the King James you won’t find “altar” used there in verse 4, you’ll find the word censer.  In the King James Version it will say that the Holy of Holies (and New King James as well) “holds the golden censer and the Ark of the Covenant.”

So they would say this isn’t talking about having the altar of incense behind the veil.  This is just the golden censer that the High Priest would carry with him into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.

But there is a problem with that because the writer of Hebrews (if we look at just the description going back to the earlier verses) says:

NKJ Hebrews 9:2 For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;

He’s not talking functionally here.  Neither is he talking about the way it was only on the Day of Atonement.  See if we’re going to take the solution that it’s the golden censer you’d have to say this is talking only about that time when the High Priest was taking the censer inside the Holy of Holies. That just doesn’t work because the way the writer is writing is he’s just describing the normal status of the Tabernacle.

NKJ Hebrews 9:3 and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,

NKJ Hebrews 9:4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

So he’s writing descriptively about what is normally there in each of these rooms – their normal furnishings.  It’s not until he gets down to verse 6 that he begins to talk about function or operation.  He’s simply being descriptive there.  So that’s one problem with understanding the altar to be the golden censer.

Another problem has to do with the word here.  The word that is used in the Greek isn’t the normal word that is used for an altar.  It is a different word.  It is the word thumiaterion.  I don’t have this up on the screen.  Thumiaterion is spelled t-h-u-m-i-a-t-e-r-i-o-n.

Now there’s debate over this (the meaning of the word) because the core meaning of thumiaterion has any vessel that is used to carry incense or that has anything to do with the burning of incense.  So it could refer to a censer, but it can also refer to the altar itself.  It’s a more generic term.

In fact you can look at various ancient translations whether it’s the Syriac Pisheto or the Vulgate and they take this to refer to a censer as the King James and New King James take it.  There are other ancient translations and commentators who take it as the altar of incense.  It could go either way because the word itself is not that technical.  That’s part of the issue here.  So when we look at this second option, the altar is a censer based on the word used.  We recognize that in the Septuagint the full use of the word was thusiasterion thumiamatas.  Now the second word thumiamatas is where we get the word thumiaterion.  Thumiaterion comes into usage during the intertestamental period.  Now this is where it gets kind of technical and to make it simple…  In the Septuagint which was translated during the intertestamental period, the Septuagint usage is different from general Hellenistic usage of the word.  There are several writers who build out the case for that so that those who were writing strictly within the Scripture…for example thumiaterion is used in a couple of passages, for example in 2 Chronicles 26:19 and Ezekiel 8:11 to refer to the golden altar.  But when you get into extra-biblical literature (outside of the canon for example in Philo and Josephus), they’re not as picky about the meaning of thumiaterion and there it’s used as a synonym for the altar.

So there’s clear evidence that the word that’s used here that’s translated “altar” and in some versions “censer” could go either way.  There is clear evidence from Josephus, from Philo who were 1st century writers. Philo was a Jew who lived in Alexandria in northern Egypt.  Josephus was a priest.  He was from a priestly family.  He was a general in the Roman army during the time of the Jewish revolt.  He was a general in the Jewish army at the time of the revolt against Rome.  He got captured and he turned sides – sort of a Benedict Arnold many Jews would say.   But, he was very well educated.  He wrote a history of the Jews.  He was sort of patronized by the Flavian Caesars and by Titus…took care of him and financed his operations when he went back to Rome after the rebellions.  He wrote the History of the Wars of the Jews, The History of the Jews.  So we rely a lot upon Josephus for 1st century information.  He doesn’t live at the same time as Christ.  He’s a little bit younger so he isn’t born until about 40.  But he’s in his 30’s during the time of the wars of the rebellion.  So we look to Josephus for a lot of word usage ideas that come from that particular period of time.

Also in the early church you have Clement of Alexandria in the 2nd century as well as Origen in the late 2nd, early 3rd century who also used the word thumiaterion to refer to the altar of incense.

The point is that the word can mean either censer or altar of incense.  The problem isn’t with the word; it’s with that adjective golden.  When you look at the descriptions in the Tabernacle, the only golden censer is one that’s associated with the menorah, with the lamp.  There’s no golden censer that’s associated with the bronze altar or with the altar of incense.  It was a bronze censer.  So once again if you call this a censer, then you’ve got a problem.  You’re either going to have to argue (as some do) for later usage because there was a gold censer that was used in the Herodian Temple.  But there’s no gold censer used back in the Tabernacle period, and that’s the period that is being described and focused on in this particular passage.

Another thing that comes up in terms of understanding this issue is that in the Pentateuch there’s no use of this golden censer.  The term which I just mentioned (the term that is used in the later Second Temple period) is the term kph which refers to a golden censer used in the Herodian period.  The term for censer that’s used in the Tabernacle in Leviticus (for example in Leviticus 16:12) is the Hebrew word machtah.  So you don’t have a word at all that is associated with a golden censer.

Another part of this argument is that the Septuagint used the word purion.  Now pur (p-u-r) is the word for fire.  So purion was like a firepan as it’s translated in some versions or a censer.  That’s the Greek word that’s used in the Septuagint of the Pentateuch.  The purion is always of bronze and is not of gold.

So the first problem that we have with this being a censer is that the author of Hebrews is writing and describing what’s in each room as a standard fixture and not just what is happening during the event of the Day of Atonement. 

The second problem (the one that I just pointed out) has to do with all the language issues - that the term here just can’t be limited to censer.  The fact that it’s golden...the golden censer solution just doesn’t work.  I was going to say it doesn’t hold water, but it doesn’t hold fire either.  It just doesn’t work.

A third problem for this word is that the context of Hebrews 9 is talking about the Tabernacle, talking about the service in the Tabernacle, not later on.  One of the things I kept saying when I would read people – for example someone brought up Edersheim.  Some of you may have seen Alfred Edersheim’s famous work, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah (a big thick book), an excellent resource.  But he has another book on the Temple, on the priesthood and its ministry and services. But it’s all about the Second Temple period.  It’s not about Solomon or it’s not about Exodus.  It’s about primarily what’s going on in the Second Temple period.

What I’m saying is we have to be careful not to read Second Temple descriptions back into First Temple activities or Tabernacle activities because there were some notable differences. 

One of those notable differences is that:

   1. There was a veil in the Tabernacle that separated the Holy of Holies from the holy place as I have depicted here with this purple line.    2. In the Solomonic Temple, there is a veil and a wall.

Now last time I said that I didn’t find a reference to a veil.  That’s because when I did my word search, I only did a word search within Kings. I didn’t check Chronicles.   In Chronicles there is an extremely brief reference to the veil.

II Chronicles 3:14 says:

NKJ 2 Chronicles 3:14 And he

That is Solomon.

made the veil

He uses the technical word for poreketh which is the veil between the holy place and the Holy of Holies.

of blue, purple, crimson, and fine linen, and wove cherubim into it.

That’s all it says.  It doesn’t say where it hung in relation to the wall.  But, it’s very clear that there was a wall there and either the wall and the veil were right next to each other or there was a difference between them.  Some have suggested that maybe the altar of incense was between the two.  I don’t know.   

Now that brings me to current events.  This is a National Geographic, fine conservative fashion of scholarship.  But they have a good article in here.  The cover article is on the real King Herod, architect of the Holy Land.  They have a fabulous picture on the cover of Masada.  I have not had time to read it.  I just happen to be walking through the new HEB the other day and as I was walking out the door it caught my eye and I grabbed it and brought it home.  But, I haven’t had time to look at the article at all.  However, the one thing I do like…  I love maps.  They have a map inside that is really good.  If somebody – we need to get another copy of this just so we can get the map to use in prep school because on one side you have a map with all the contemporary countries in the Middle East – Egypt here, the Sinai, Saudi Arabia, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, Israel, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Cyprus, and Turkey.  That’s great to give you a good understanding of where things are.  I love maps.  I’ve always loved maps and like to read maps and I realize there are some people who are challenged when they read maps.  It’s really a good thing to have to orient geographically.

But on the other side they have this chart called Jerusalem’s Holy Ground which is a great graphic.  What they have down here in this square is the look of the Temple Mount in the post-Moslem period.  So you have the centerpiece here as the Dome of the Rock.  Out here you have the Al-Aksa Mosque.  They have a cutaway here to see down the area which the Crusaders used for a temple.  There were arches that were used down there to support the Temple platform as Herod rebuilt it.  They were used by the Crusaders to stable their horses.  So they mistakenly called it Solomon’s Stables.  It’s been excavated in recent years illegally by the Moslems by the Waqf.  They’ve built an underground mosque down there now.

Here you have the palaces that the Umayyad dynasty built there during the early Muslim period.  Evidence of that is pretty much gone now.  But then there’s a cutaway over here of the Dome of the Rock and what it looks like inside and where the foundation stone is which is where they believe the Ark of the Covenant was - the foundation stone where they believe is where Abraham sacrificed Isaac.  So there is a good cutaway there.

Then just above it, there is a picture of the temple platform for the Second Temple Period and what that looks like with a cutaway over here of what the Second Temple looked like, the Herodian Temple.  So that’s good.  Then above that you have a platform depiction here of what the Temple Mount looked like during the Solomonic period.  Out here they have a picture of their reconstruction of the Solomonic Temple. 

Now there’s no archeological evidence of the Solomonic Temple.  But if you look at this, they have a solid wall between the holy place and the Holy of Holies.  Now one of my points here was that the function of the altar of incense on the Day of Atonement was that the smoke from the altar of incense would fill the inner room.  Now the only way that could do that would be open up the door and put a fan in there to blow the smoke in.  Or if the door is closed, then you have a problem getting enough smoke in there to cover the Ark of the Covenant.   But they do depict simply the wall.  They don’t have a wall and a veil so that’s a mistake which they missed on.

Okay. So other differences… In the Solomonic Temple they had ten menorah and ten tables of showbread whereas in the Tabernacle there was only one.  In Herod’s Temple there was one only one.  But Solomon had 10 tables of showbread and 10 menorah.  The Solomonic Temple is much, much larger.  All of the furniture – externally the bronze altar is enormous compared to the Tabernacle bronze altar as is the laver for ritual washing.  Remember it’s set on the backs of 12 oxen.  There is this enormous swimming pool almost that sat out in the courtyard.

Another difference that we see here in our text in verse 4 states that in the Ark of the Covenant “in the Ark of the Covenant” – verse 4 says:

NKJ Hebrews 9:4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

That’s the tablets of the Ten Commandments.  However when you get into the description of the Ark of the Covenant in 2 Kings 7 and 8, all that’s mentioned is the Ten Commandments.  There is no longer a mention of the manna or Aaron’s rod that budded.  They’re not inside the Ark anymore.  They somehow got misplaced I guess.  I don’t know.  Nobody knows what happened to them.  But they’re not mentioned again.

So in the Solomonic Temple you have an Ark that’s absent Aaron’s rod and absent the manna.  But that was there in the Tabernacle period.  You also have…of course the major difference with the Second Temple from the early ones because there is no Ark of the Covenant.

So there are clearly distinctions. I think people don’t pay enough attention to the fact that there were slight variations that occurred down through history.  So having brought all of that out, I suggested that the way to handle some of the situations in the Old Testament is to look at the perspective that we have in Old Testament passages.

So if we use this as a backdrop, then I’m going to just reference a couple of passages that we have in Exodus.  For example in Exodus 26:33-35 it mentions the table of showbread and the menorah as being outside the veil.  If you look at those passages, verses 34 and 35 say:

NKJ Exodus 26:34 "You shall put the mercy seat upon the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy.

NKJ Exodus 26:35 "You shall set the table outside the veil, and the lampstand across from the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south; and you shall put the table on the north side.

Now using the chart up there as our orientation, if you’re standing in the holy place or outside the Tabernacle proper itself, it wouldn’t make sense to say, “Set the table outside the veil”…especially when you look at the way the description flows in Exodus.  The description for the construction of the Tabernacle begins in chapter 26.  It begins with the Ark of the Covenant.  It doesn’t begin as we did in our study with the outer courtyard and the outer wall hangings.  It starts from the middle and works itself out because the orientation is always from God’s perspective, not from man’s perspective in the description of the Tabernacle.  

So if you’re inside the Holy of Holies and God says, “You shall set the table outside the veil and the lampstand opposite the table.” then it makes sense.  The reason that is important is because when you come down later to Exodus 30:6 it says:

NKJ Exodus 30:6 "And you shall put it

The background picture here is the altar in the holy place.

before the veil that is before the ark of the Testimony, before the mercy seat that is over the Testimony, where I will meet with you.

Because there is a separation from chapter 26 to chapter 30, you forget what the perspective is.  So when you read this in isolation from 26, it is easy to say, “Well, this where the altar of incense would go.”  But if you maintain your perspective which you have all the way through this section of being inside the Holy of Holies, then when the text says, “You shall put this altar in front of the veil that is near the Ark of the Testimony in front of the mercy seat.”…that uses a preposition in the Hebrew which means what is in front of, what is before, what is in the presence of.  So it indicates near proximity that the golden altar was in the face of or right in front of the Ark of the Covenant.

Now you run into a couple of other problems with this in Leviticus 16. I went back and looked at a lot of this stuff and what you find in almost every discussion of Leviticus 16 – I read through several commentaries looking to see how they handled this.  (You might as well turn to Leviticus 16 with me because we’ll be there when we finish this section on the Tabernacle.)  When we look at verse 14, it describes the fact that after the High Priest goes in after he has put incense on the fire and the clouds fill the room.  In verse 14 we read:

NKJ Leviticus 16:14 "He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat

…which is that same preposition which means “in front of.”  So we see the same idea of its immediacy...right in front of the mercy seat.

he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.

NKJ Leviticus 16:15 " Then he shall kill the goat of the sin offering,.

Now what does he have to do to do that? He has to go back outside.  This is verse 15.

which is for the people, bring its blood inside the veil,

So now he’s back inside the holy place.  So the perspective again is from inside the holy place.

do with that blood as he did with the blood of the bull, and sprinkle it on the mercy seat and before the mercy seat

NKJ Leviticus 16:16 "So he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

Then we skip down to about verse 18.

NKJ Leviticus 16:18 "And he shall go out to the altar that is before the LORD, and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar all around.

Now he has gone inside the veil.  Now he goes outside the veil to the altar that is before the Lord.

Everybody I read to a man identifies this altar as the altar of incense.  But as I pointed out last time, 81 times you have the word mizbeach for altar in Leviticus.  And, 79 of them clearly refer to the bronze altar.  The reference to the mizbeach in Luke 4 with the sin offering calls it the altar of fragrant incense.  It is very clear that that’s talking about the altar of incense.  You have 3 other uses of the word altar in Leviticus 16 - one prior to verse 18 and I think two after it.  They each refer to the bronze altar.  So the only conclusion you can arrive at is the altar in verse 18 has to be the bronze altar unless there is someway that there is some clear indication that he’s talking about the altar of incense.  Everywhere else in the context, it’s the bronze altar.  Whenever he is going to talk about the other altar he changes the terminology.

The reason people get confused is in Exodus 30 it clearly states that on the Day of Atonement the priest is supposed to put blood on the horns of the altar of incense as well.

But, remember that he goes outside.  So it makes better sense to think that when he’s inside he’s putting blood on the Ark of the Covenant.  He also does it on the altar of incense; it’s just not mentioned here.  Then he goes out and he puts it on the bronze altar which was typical with a sin offering and with the burnt offering.  They would do that.  That’s what the bull and the goat were.  They were the sin offering and the burnt offering.  So that takes us back to understanding some things just about what’s happening on the Day of Atonement.

Last time I went through all the details point by point trying to summarize all of the details that were involved in that.  That’s what I want to talk about next.

But before we get there I left out one thing.  In 1 Kings 6:22 in reference to the Second Temple – excuse me in reference to Solomon’s Temple - there is a statement that the altar of incense is in the Holy of Holies.  It doesn’t use the exact same preposition; it uses a shortened form of the preposition that’s used in Exodus.  But what’s interesting was is I consulted – was reading through probably 15 or 20 different commentaries on Hebrews outlining the different arguments and reading what everybody had to say - that most of the people that referenced it (I mean everybody who referenced it) seemed to indicate that the altar was viewed as being in the Holy of Holies; but it was because of function.  That’s the third argument.

Now what I’ve done so far – let’s backup so I don’t get you all confused.  We dealt with the second view which is the altar is actually a censer based on the word used.  The third view has to do with the fact that this is just talking about the function of the altar in Hebrews 9 - that because it is so closely associated with the Ark of the Covenant and because the smoke from the altar of incense would fill the Holy of Holies that therefore the writer of Hebrews is talking about it being behind the veil functionally.  But as I pointed out (#1) we are not talking about function until we get to verse 6 in Hebrews 9.  It just seems to be somewhat lacking in real strength.

As I read through these commentaries and these various arguments, one of the things that appears is that those who are arguing for that position (arguing against the second position) all go to 2 Kings 6:22 to say, “See in the description of the Solomonic Temple the altar of incense is spoken of as being in the Holy of Holies also because of association.”

See this is a great example of the power of a presupposition.  We talked about presuppositions before and said you know something is so deeply ingrained assumption about life that it controls our interpretation of something despite certain evidence.  We’ve heard something over and over and over again and it is a deeply ingrained assumption about reality that shapes how we interpret and understand things going on around us. So at times we have to in the Christian life - we have to take out our presuppositions and challenge them because it’s often at the presuppositional level that we were holding certain ideas that are contrary to Scripture.  So what we see here is people who have it so ingrained in them that the altar of incense is out the Holy of Holies that they come to a passage like 1 Kings 6:22 which indicates that the altar of incense is in the Holy of Holies and they’ll say, “See, it is spoken Holy of Holies there to because of the function.”  They don’t even think.

In fact I only know of about two commentaries that I ran into that take the position that I do that the altar is inside the Holy of Holies.   No one else even discusses that as the fourth option.   It doesn’t even occur to them.  They’ve seen the charts.  They’ve heard what Josephus and Philo and others say about the first century Temple that the altar of incense is out in the holy place.  That is such a controlling reality that when they go back and they read these other things, they don’t even stop and think about those prepositions and the perspective and where is the writer standing or any of those things until all of a sudden…and I was that way too until all of a sudden I went, “Wait a minute!  Maybe there is something different there.”  It just shocks us because it’s been so ingrained in us that it looks the other way.  It’s not this way.  It’s this way in the Tabernacle, not in the Second Temple period.  Okay.  I hope having gone through it again that everybody has got that at least somewhat figured out.

Golgotha

Golgotha  RD/Heb/146b

So the sacrifice of Christ on Golgotha – Golgotha was outside the gate.  Now there’s a lot of controversy historically over just exactly where that was located.  I don’t want to spend a lot of time on that tonight.  We could spend a clear hour talking about it, but the Church of the Holy Sepulcher which usually turns off most Protestants because it’s two or three different chapels built over this site where they believe Jesus was crucified and buried.  It really surprises most people because the distance from they believe Jesus was crucified to where He was buried is about the distance from where I’m standing to our front classroom up by that front door in the back section over there.  That’s not very far away, is it?  It’s really close and it surprises everybody.  But that’s the distance.  I think that there’s good historical documentation that this would be the location.  One of the reasons it wasn’t accepted for centuries was because they believed that the gate - that this location wasn’t outside the gate.  But, it wasn’t until about 20 or 30 years ago that they were doing some excavating in a Russian Orthodox Church just about maybe 30 or 40 yards east of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.  They went down to the basement and they discovered the foundation of the wall.  They even have a gate there that has been restored.  You can go down to the basement of the church and see the foundation of the wall.  So that meant that the site of the Holy Sepulcher was indeed outside the gate.  This is where they would crucify criminals.

Gospel

The Gospel is not according to man.  RD/Gal/006

This has to do with something that is not agreeable with and not in line with the standards of human thinking or human viewpoint. By way of application, three important observations:

a)      The gospel is a unique message proclaimed a unique way. Do not denigrate the gospel or insult God by reducing the gospel to merchandise being sold in the street. Unfortunately that is what is happening today in most churches and across the air waves of the radio and television. They are adopting methods for proclaiming the gospel and methods for evangelism that have more to do with Madison Avenue and less to do with dependence upon the power of God and the Holy Spirit. Do not reduce the Scriptures to common commerce. We are not out there to sell it. The techniques of evangelism are not the techniques of salesmanship.

b)      Evangelism is not to be conducted according to the principles of sociology. We have lost three battles in the last century: the battle s over evolution, psychology (which claims to be authoritative for all matters related to the soul. But the Bible claims exclusive authority in that area), and sociology (let’s go out and take surveys; let’s understand principles of how a society and a culture operates and then use those principles in order to develop our methods for planting churches, witnessing and evangelism).

c)      Evangelism is not manipulation. E.g. Charles Finney who introduced a whole host of procedures and methods (altar calls, etc.) for evangelism designed to get people to make external professions of faith. God has given every human being volition. They can be positive and accept the gospel or they can be negative and reject the gospel. We can pray that God will make the gospel clear to someone, that He would put enough pressure on a person’s life to put them in a position where they would be more receptive to the gospel, but God is not going to reach down inside that person and switch him over to positive and make them believe the gospel. God is going to respect their individual freedom and volition.      

Gospel, The Health and Wealth

The Health and Wealth Gospel  RD/3 John 006

It goes by several different names: the health and wealth gospel, the prosperity gospel, and it is also known as the faith movement or the word of faith movement. This “word of faith” really brings in the Gnostic element of this. Gnosticism was the idea that I have to find out the secret knowledge. I will have the key to health and prosperity and success in life and happiness in life but I just have to find out that secret formula, that secret knowledge. But in Gnosticism they always had something outside of God and that was these Gnostic principles. They were abstract principles that exist outside of God and even God is subject to them. This is the same thing that is seen in the word of faith movement. They abstract this principle of faith to a principle that even God is subject to. So faith in and of itself becomes a metaphysical principle of power, and the way they talk about faith reveals this. So it is a neo-Gnostic movement. It is also called the born-again Jesus movement and that brings in the idea that their Jesus isn’t the Jesus of the Bible and doesn’t do what the Jesus of the Bible does. It is also known as the name it and claim it theology because of the emphasis on positive confession.

Their basic thought is that all growing and spiritually mature Christians should be living lives of total material success, physical health and financial wealth which is attained through a positive confession of faith. In other words, if you are sick it is a sign that you are not trusting God, you are carnal, you don’t know anything about the Bible, and you are not using faith at all in your life. Jesus does for the sin of poverty and if you are poor you are just not trusting Jesus. They make poverty a sin, sickness in and of itself a sin, so they have a distorted view of the atonement.

Where did all of this come from? It didn’t just pop up. We have to understand history. It has its roots in the early or middle part of the nineteenth century. Many assume that all charismatics have this same sort of view, and that is not true. The most influential charismatic, though, that got into health and wealth teaching was a man named Kenneth Hagen, Snr. He is considered the father of this health and wealth, born-again Jesus theology, but it is a very different form of healing than traditional charismatics held to. Word of faith teaching is really the result of a combination of ideas that arose in the 19th century. On the one hand there was the development among non-Christians of the transcendental thinking, an almost a pantheistic view that God is in everything and above everything, He is not imminent in creation He is just transcendent and you can’t really know Him. So once you get God so far out there you can’t know anything about Him the only way you know anything is when it is generated out of yourself. So it has this very mystical emphasis. Then at the same time coming out of Boston initially and then spreading its ugliness throughout the world is Unitarianism. On top of this another thing that came along at the same time was a type of thinking called new thought metaphysics. This is the idea that man’s thinking can control his environment. New though metaphysics had quite a number of different children. This was developed initially by Phineas Parker Quindy  (1802-1866). He began healing by simple hypnotism and he used hypnotism to develop the idea that you can solve any problem in life, you just need to have your mind freed from these constraints. He developed this whole system of new thought and it was the seed bed of much of what has come to be called self-help philosophy.

To buy into these philosophies and attempt to syncretise them with Christianity means being a failure in the spiritual life because it is using a lot of ideas and principles for problem-solving that are contrary to the Word of God. In fact, what they emphasise is human ability. So new thought metaphysics is just a loose mixture of all kinds of ideas that were never systematised. It is a precursor to the new age movement. New thought metaphysics emphasises the immanence of God but it also emphasises the divine nature of man, that every man has a spark of divinity in him, (That is different from being in the image and likeness of God, by the way) and that every human being has immediately available to him God’s power. You just have to have the right key, the right mental attitude, and then you can tap into God’s power. According to them sin, disease, and poverty are all the result of incorrect thinking. In their view Jesus was simply a teacher and a healer, a mere man, not God. He was no more divine than the rest of us because we all have that spark of divinity in us. New thought thinking has strains of monism, i.e. that ultimate reality is all one, there is no real distinction ultimately. It picks up ideas from ancient Gnosticism, and Platonism as well. In essence its true belief was that ultimate reality is spiritual and not physical. We are just sort of an image of ultimate reality, like Plato’s shadows in the cave. We are not real, what is real is what is out there in this sort of ultimate reality. Therefore physical effects are merely secondary and not real. The human mind through positive mental attitude and positive conception can change the physical realities, and we can change from sickness to health, from poverty to wealth.

New thought didn’t have any specific dogma, it was based on hypnotism and a lot of self-help type of things. It picked up ideas from social Darwinism, Unitarianism, transcendentalism, Platonism, and a lot of other isms that were popular at that time. Probably the person that Quindy had his greatest influence on was a woman by the name of Mary Baker Glover Patterson Eddy who was the founder of Christian science. His thinking was also influential in what has come to be called the unity school of Christianity, divine science, the church of religious science, and other of these mind-science cults. Another one of Quindy’s adherents was a man by the name of Charles Emmerson who founded the Emmerson College and School of Oratory in Boston. Then one of Emmerson’s students was a man by the name of E. W. Kenyon (1867-1948), the real grandfather of the word of faith movement. He began life as a Methodist, later became a Baptist, he ended up in Boston in the late 1890s where he enrolled in the Emmerson School and drank up the teaching on new thought metaphysics. He thought that the problem with Methodism was that there wasn’t enough that was biblical and that there wasn’t enough of the blood of Christ in Christian science. So he reacted to these things and tried to recreate his own ideas. His books were then picked up and plagiarised by Kenneth Hagen Snr.

Hagen was very popular. He was close to Oral Roberts and they both have Bible Institutes in Tulsa Oklahoma. In the 1960s an impoverished student came to Hagen’s Rhema Bible Institute and wanted to learn the Bible. He said he couldn’t buy any tapes but would trade his car for them. He was given the tapes. That young man at that time was Kenneth Copeland who is now considered to be the foremost spokesman for the health and wealth gospel. This theology was originally declared to be heretical and was rejected by the Assembly of God, and most conservative Pentecostals, but now it is the dominant theology among Pentecostals.

So that gives an idea of where this thing comes from and who these people are, but its roots are not biblical exegesis, its views are a hodge-podge, an amalgam of all kinds of Gnostic, transcendental, self-help type of ideas, and much of it comes right out of demon possession and demon influence.

What do they believe? What is it that is so bad that they believe? What do they believe about God? If we are going to critique a theological system we always start with God. What do they think about the Bible? What do they think about Jesus, about His person? What do they think about Jesus and His work on the cross? How do they define sin and what sin is, and how do they define the solution to sin? You just break it down into the basic categories and analyse it that way.

What do they believe about God? They say that God created the world and does everything by speaking words of faith. God created by faith, and the way they take that is God uses faith to create things. So they view faith as some sort of abstract principle that exists outside of God. Remember, we have emphasised again and again and again when we were studying Genesis that when God created the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1:1 there were no laws outside of God in existence. God created them all: them laws of physics, biology, logic, etc. The laws of logic, foe example, are simply a reflection of the orderly thinking in the mind of God. God does not follow some sort of abstract principle. Love does not exist outside of God. God does not live in accordance with some kind of external principle; He is the standard; He is the embodiment of these things. So God is then viewed by them as a faith being. In their view God Himself is bound by the forces of the spirit world (This really brings in some of that Gnostic stuff) and he can only operate through the force of faith. You have to tap into this faith force and use this faith force and make a positive confession in order to do anything. All this means is that there is some sort of power over God to which he must appeal and which He must use in order to create things. Therefore God is less than God, He is not an eternally omnipotent God, and not the creator of everything; there are certain principles of ultimate reality that are even outside of God that He must conform to. So for them their god is not the God of the Bible. They break down the creator-creature distinction. Furthermore, when the Scripture says that man is created in God’s image this means that human beings are little gods. If God has to tap into this faith power, this metaphysical power, in order to create things then we can too. So we are created as little gods. This really starts blending into Mormonism. The same thing is true for the positive confession people, the health and wealth people: we are all little gods and we can imitate God by speaking the same words of faith with the same creative power. And just as God created His reality by words of faith you can create new reality by words of faith. So if you don’t like your reality all you have to do is learn the magic words and you can create your own reality, and you, too, can have health and wealth, success and prosperity.

What did man become at the fall? They believe that Adam’s nature was transformed into Satan’s nature. It’s not a sin nature, it is Satan’s nature. Adam’s godhood got transformed to Satan’s nature, so there is a sort of kidnapping of Adam’s deity. Well if that is the problem then at the atonement Jesus’ death must have as its purpose to restore human beings to godhood, and renewed incarnations of God. They have an extremely demonic view of the atonement. In the atonement Kenneth Copeland teaches that Jesus Christ became obedient to Satan and took Satan’s nature upon Himself. What does the Bible teach? The Bible teaches that on the cross Jesus Christ was absolute perfect righteousness. He never loses that perfect righteousness; He never becomes personally guilty of sin. God the Father in His perfect righteousness imputes judicially the sins of the world on Christ. It is a judicial imputation, it is not a real imputation. Jesus doesn’t become a fallen creature, He does not personally sin on the cross and He does not acquire a sin nature. He becomes spiritually dead in a judicial sense; He is temporarily separated from God the Father so that the sons of the world can be poured out upon Him. When we say Christ died spiritually what we are saying is that the penalty for sin was spiritual death, not physical death. That means separation from God and a loss of a human spirit so that we cannot understand the things of God and we cannot do anything that pleases God. When Jesus Christ died spiritually He was judicially separated from God between 12 noon and 3 pm on the cross. That is the time He bore our penalty on the cross.  In the health and wealth theology, according to Kenneth Copeland, Christ’s spiritual death occurred when He suffered in hell at the hands of the demons who tortured Him. The Bible teaches that Jesus went to Hades to announce the victory that has been performed on the cross. What they have done is destroyed that: Jesus is kidnapped off the cross basically, and when He goes into the grave His spirit is taken to Hades by the demons and the demons torture Him. Satan and the demons, according to Copeland, have forgotten that Christ is not a sinner so they think He is just somebody else and drag Him to hell and punish Him illegally. But He is in hell now and God has entered the fortresses of the enemy. So now that Jesus is in hell God is now able to fill Him with words of faith and cause Jesus to be born again as the first-born from the dead. See how they take biblical terms and completely pervert them and give them an entirely new meaning coming out of this whole metaphysical theology that they have. When they talk about Jesus’ spiritual death it is not the same, but they use the same terminology. That is why Christians have to wake up and learn something about this, and learn to decipher and discern what people say about different things.

When they talk about salvation the word of faith people teach that Christians in regeneration are then empowered to speak words of faith again and define health and financial prosperity guaranteed by the cross. All of this is nothing more than a neo-Gnosticism. The word of faith gospel has a different Jesus, a different gospel, and a different God. To access their god you have to have a special knowledge or gnosis in order to achieve health and wealth and prosperity. 

How do they do that? Their methodology is positive confession. This means you have to visualise what you want, which is an occult methodology borrowed from Hinduism, and then he speaks that into existence with his mouth. It is a form of magic. What is confessed then is supposed to come to pass. They say that if a believer wants to be successful over their circumstances they must confess it positively. There is no negative thinking here, you can’t admit that you have a headache, if you have physical pain you can’t admit it because you are not trusting God if you do. Positive confession creates a positive reality and, for them, a negative confession creates a negative reality. For them salvation, health and prosperity all must be spoken by the mouth in order to come into existence. Of course, if this is true Moses, Job, Jeremiah, David, Jonah and Elijah would all have problems because they all got pretty depressed at times in their spiritual life and their words and negative confessions would have created all kinds of disasters. We have to realise that this teaching which dominates so much today is just completely unbiblical and based on false exegesis of passages.

3 John 2 is a key verse. Another verse that they go for has to do with divine healing, another major plank in their thinking. For them healing and positive thinking are inseparable. The verses they go to is Isaiah 53:4, 5 NASB “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being {fell} upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed.” These are verses that are poetry and are using metaphor and imagery to describe the atonement and how Christ paid the penalty for our sins, and in consequence takes care of the consequences. They say that “by His scourging we are healed” means that as a result of His atonement we have healing. First of all, that violates the content of this passage. Second, we have to understand that the Hebrew word used to translate healing is raphah. It primarily has the idea of spiritual recovery, not physical healing, as in Jeremiah 3:22. It does appear, like v. 5, that by His scourging we are healed, but this is really qualified and clarified in the Gospels. Matthew 8:16, 17 NASB “When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. {This was} to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES’.” Once again, in order to understand this we have to go back to the Scriptures and realise that there is a difference between the penalty for sin and the consequences of that penalty. The penalty was spiritual death, separation from God in time and, if you don’t trust Christ as Saviour, separation in eternity. Consequences included an effect on the animals, on the woman, botany, etc. All of these things are the consequences of sin, including physical death, as is physical sickness. Because Jesus died on the cross and solved the problem of the penalty of sin He eventually is going to be able to solve all the problems and consequences of sin but this doesn’t happen until the Second Advent when the lion will lay down with the lamb and we are in heaven in our resurrection bodies. This doesn’t happen in our lifetime. All of these will be dealt with because of the atonement as secondary effects and consequences but that doesn’t mean that they are to be in effect today.

One of the greatest charges and lies of the health and wealth crowd is that those of us who don’t believe in charismatic forms of healing don’t believe God heals. God still heals but God is sovereign and He heals when he will, when he will, it is not determined or manipulated by human beings.

We have to be careful of how people use and distort Scripture. We live in an age of as much heresy and as much distortion as the time of the early church. One of the greatest distortions is the distortion of grace. People today don’t understand grace. The health and wealth gospel crowds do not understand grace.   

Gospel, Three Important Observations About the

Three Important Observations About the Gospel  RD/Gal/006

a)      The gospel is a unique message proclaimed a unique way. Do not denigrate the gospel or insult God by reducing the gospel to merchandise being sold in the street. Unfortunately that is what is happening today in most churches and across the air waves of the radio and television. They are adopting methods for proclaiming the gospel and methods for evangelism that have more to do with Madison Avenue and less to do with dependence upon the power of God and the Holy Spirit. Do not reduce the Scriptures to common commerce. We are not out there to sell it. The techniques of evangelism are not the techniques of salesmanship.

b)      Evangelism is not to be conducted according to the principles of sociology. We have lost three battles in the last century: the battle s over evolution, psychology (which claims to be authoritative for all matters related to the soul. But the Bible claims exclusive authority in that area), and sociology (let’s go out and take surveys; let’s understand principles of how a society and a culture operates and then use those principles in order to develop our methods for planting churches, witnessing and evangelism).

c)      Evangelism is not manipulation. E.g. Charles Finney who introduced a whole host of procedures and methods (altar calls, etc.) for evangelism designed to get people to make external professions of faith. God has given every human being volition. They can be positive and accept the gospel or they can be negative and reject the gospel. We can pray that God will make the gospel clear to someone, that He would put enough pressure on a person’s life to put them in a position where they would be more receptive to the gospel, but God is not going to reach down inside that person and switch him over to positive and make them believe the gospel. God is going to respect their individual freedom and volition.      

Government, The Believer and Civil

The Believer and Civil Government.  RD/Kings 064

Rom 13:1-7

Points of review

1.       Civil government was first instituted by God in the Noahic covenant, Genesis 9:5, 6 when God ordained the sword for capital punishment for capital crimes (specifically murder). There is no mention of the word “government” here, so how do we get government out of this. If we are going to apply the principle we have to think about this. If we are now responsible for taking the life of somebody who commits this kind of act how do we go about adjudicating the decision? How do we decide of a person is truly guilty? How do we decide if it was an accident or intentional? Who is going to be given the authority within a society in order to carry out this punishment? What kind of redress might there be in this case for somebody who might be unjustly condemned? All of these things must be taken into account if we are going to apply this principle.

2.       We must recognize that civil government is part of what we call the divine institutions. These are established by God. The term “divine institution” has been used by Christians to speak of the absolute social structure that was established by God and embedded within the social makeup of human beings. So in order for human beings to realize their full potential as image bearers these institutions must be followed. They are for the entire human race, believer and unbelievers alike. When they are followed there can be a measure of success and prosperity; when they are violated that society will eventually erode and collapse from the inside. In contrast, modern paganism (and paganism throughout history) has used these as simply byproducts of man’s psycho-social evolution; they are viewed as cultural conventions: that God didn’t ordain or establish marriage—marriage is something that people found to have a pragmatic value and so it was developed or evolved along the way; that God did not establish government, it is a convention that man developed. We have to understand that there is a difference between an institution as we are using the word and a convention. Human convention has to do with things that may differ from culture to culture, country to country, language group to language group, because they are developed by different peoples in order to carry out basic structures of their society.

3.       There are five divine institutions and three of them were established prior to the fall. That is important to understand because they don’t have to do with sin; they weren’t designed by God in order to somehow control sin. They were there is perfect environment and so the first three divine institutions were designed for man’s prosperity, his blessing and his growth. The first was individual responsibility: each person is accountable to God for how he lives his life in terms of the resources God has given him. The second was marriage which was to be between one man and one woman. (The issue with homosexuality is that it is a sin which attacks the very core of a successful society; it attacks the divine institution of marriage) When the institution of marriage crumbles the family crumbles and future generations suffer so that its society will implode as these cancers eat away internally. Family is the third divine institution, it is the core education system for providing for the next generation, for passing values on from one generation to the next. These were all in place before the fall. Then after the flood was the development of the fourth divine institution which was human/civil government, the judicial aspect, and individual nations. These come along after sin enter into human history. The purpose of the first three, the pre-fall divine institutions, is to promote productivity and advance civilization so that man can experience all of God’s blessing in his society in a social sense. The post-fall divine institutions are designed to retrain and inhibit evil which would destroy productivity and prosperity. Human government and nations are designed to protect the human race from evil and tyranny, but unfortunately living in a fallen world where these institutions are under the direction of fallen human beings, human government is often perverted to do just the opposite of what it was intended to do. Nevertheless it is an institution that has been established by God.

4.       The problem that we run into as Christians is when the authority of civil government conflicts with the mandates and responsibilities that are assigned to us by God. The problem is when the government specifically and directly contradicts what the Bible directs us to do. So we are to understand how we are to respond and what our attitude should be toward civil government.

The epistle to the Romans was written by Paul, some say as early as 54 AD, which would be the same time that Nero begins to reign as emperor, the last in the line from Augustus. Rome was the capital of the empire and the seat of much that was going on in government. There was a lot of turmoil at that time. One of the major issues that was in contention was taxes. Taxes in the Roman empire at that time were extremely heavy and the people were tired of being taxed all the time by the government. Romans chapter thirteen is really focused on the problem of taxes. Paul is going to start with the principle in the first verse, Romans 13:1 NASB “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” But the specific application that he is going to make is going to be in taxes. [6] “For because of this you also pay taxes, for {rulers} are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. [7] Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax {is due;} custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.” So the Word of God does not authorize disobedience to taxes in principle. We are to obey the law even when those taxes are onerous.

Romans chapter twelve is the major dividing section in the book of Romans. Through Romans chapter eleven we have more of a doctrinal discourse unpacking what God has done in our salvation in order to satisfy His righteousness, and to provide us with righteousness that we may live a righteous life. Starting in chapter twelve Paul describes what that righteous life should look like, and that righteous life is a life that is in submission to God’s authority. That is a key concept that we find running through this section; we are to be subordinate to the authority of God. Roman 12:1, 2 sets the theme for the section and chapter thirteen addresses how the believer is going to relate to government in a way that honors and glorifies God as part of our service to God. Under the overall theme of being subordinate to God and living a life that is pleasing to Him, demonstrating that His will is good, acceptable and perfect, it has a particular application in the role or relationship of the believer to government. We see this developed in Romans 13 in certain ways. We see the words “evil” and “good” in the patter part of chapter 12 as well as 13:3, 4. Another thing we note is that the idea of wrath which is an expression of God’s judicial condemnation of unrighteousness is mention in both 12:19 and 13:4, 5. Wrath is not a term meaning that someone has lost their temper or that someone is said to be angry. It is a figure of speech for the harshness of justice and the condemnation by the judge of any kind of violation of law.

There is also another connection in the concept of vengeance—12:19; 13:4. Rom 12:19 NASB “Never take your own revenge, beloved, but leave room for the wrath {of God,} for it is written, “VENGEANCE IS MINE, I WILL REPAY,” says the Lord. Wrath refers to the execution of justice, and this means do not avenge yourself, and the idea of vengeance there is close to what most people think of in terms of getting personal retribution apart from the court system. Vengeance is a word that is often mistakenly understood. We often think that vengeance means to take matters into our own hands and to mete out our own form of justice. However the basic meaning of the English word is that it is punishment inflicted in retaliation for an offence. It doesn’t say anything about who is doing it. Some dictionaries say that it is the act of or desire for taking revenge, so some tend to slant the word more towards a personal vendetta. In the Greek the word is ekdikesis [ekdikhsij]—dike [dikh] is the root word for righteousness. Vengeance is the idea of punishment for wrongdoing; it is a judicial term, not a term of personal vindictiveness or carrying out a personal vendetta. So when God says, “Vengeance is mine,” it is the idea of bringing pu8nishment upon those who are wrongdoers. It is ultimately God who will rectify all things but in the process he has delegated that authority to man.

Romans 13:1 NASB “Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.” This was written at the time of Nero but it is not written in relation to whether the emperor is good or bad, it is written in terms of the universal absolute principle that all authority comes from God.

Romans 13:2 NASB “Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves”—whether the authority is a tyrant or not. This is one of the most difficult concepts that people have had to deal with over the ages. What happens if there is an evil government? There is no exception stated here. If we resist the government/authority we will bring judgment upon ourselves. This isn’t talking about divine judgment, it is talking about the consequences of violating the law.

Romans 13:3 NASB “For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil...” If we violate the law we will suffer the consequences from the rulers. “…Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; [4] “for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. [5] Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake.” In other words, not just because there is a negative motivation (avoiding punishment) but also a positive motivation—conscience because this pleases God.

Then there is the explanation and application: Romans 13:6 NASB “For because of this you also pay taxes, for {rulers} are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. [7] Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax {is due;} custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.”

1 Peter 2:13 NASB “Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether to the king as the one in authority.” Not because they are right but because ultimately the delegated authority is not determined by the character of the person in the office but the office itself. [4] “or to governors as sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and the praise of those who do right. [15] For this is the will of God that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.”

In conclusion what we have seen in our study of these various passages are important principles. What we see is that the validity of authority is not based on how someone uses that authority. They may use it wrongly but we have to respect the office they hold. Even un just governments, kings operating as a law unto themselves, as in the case of Saul, hold an office of authority that is established by God and therefore they should be obeyed. Secondly, the use of authority in Romans 13 indicates any authority whether just or unjust, tyrant or not. It is the existing government that is ordained of God. Third, none of the passages that mandate obedience and submission qualify those commands with phrases such as if they are just, if they conform to our beliefs, if they are biblical. The passages command unqualified obedience to authority.

However, there are exceptions. Those exceptions are what we have already seen: the governing authority dictates or commands something specific of an individual that is 180 degrees opposite to what God has specifically and directly stated. For example, when the government demands a certain kind of worship that violates God’s Word, when Governments command believers to kill, take innocent life—Exodus 1, the midwives; when government commands that prophets of God are to be killed—1 Kings 18:1-4, then the believer has the right to disobey that command; when it commands the believer to worship idols—Daniel 3; when the government commands to pray to a man or to a false God, then we have the right to disobey government; when governments prohibit believers from propagating the gospel  and teaching the Word, then we have the right to disobey.

However, the Bible places limits on how the individual believer can disobey governments.

1.       The believer may refuse to obey a law but he must do it in grace and humility. If we get involved in arrogance at the time that we are disobeying that law then we have destroyed our witness at that time. It is not to be in revolt and insubordination. Disobedience in all of the biblical passages is passive, not active.

2.       The believer should be willing to take the consequences. Whatever happens for his disobedience he is going to trust in God for ultimate justice.

3.       The believer should not forget his primary mission which is to be a witness in the angelic conflict and a witness to unbelievers and proclaim the gospel to those in need of eternal life. 

Grace before Judgment

Grace before judgment RD/Gen/103

1)      No sin is too great for the grace of God. Even those in Sodom could have turned to the Lord up to this point. Remember, they had some common grace from the Lord in chapter fifteen after when were rescued after their defeat by the four kings from the east.

2)      God still protects the disobedient believer even when he is out of fellowship and living in the pig-pen. God is still watching over the prodigal son because he is in the family, but eventually it becomes time for the sin unto death.

3)      There is always forgiveness. If you are still alive God has a plan for your life. You can use 1 John 1:9 to get back into fellowship, but the issue then is to stay in fellowship, to grow, to mature, to start applying doctrine and get out of the pig-pen. What happens so often is people get out, take a shower and then jump right back in, and they spend most of their Christian life in this cycle where they confess and get cleansed and jump right back into the pig-pen of the world’s system, and they never advance because they are really not positive.

4)      Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily erase the consequences of an impoverished and perverted soul. If there is no change through doctrine then the soul remains impoverished and perverted and there is no happiness and there is no capacity for life.

5)      Cosmic thinking destroys the divine institutions. It destroys the family, and that is exactly what we se in the next episode in verse 30. 

Grace of God

Grace of God    Gen 002

We see an emphasis in Genesis on the grace of God

1)      God provides everything for mankind in the perfect environment of the garden. There is nothing left to chance. God always supplies everything, His grace is sufficient.

2)      Then, after their disobedience, God provided a physical covering for them, the sinners, despite their disobedience, and He provides salvation and life for mankind. They do not deserve it or earn it but God graciously provides.

3)      He protected Cain from avengers and put a mark on him to warn off those who would avenge him, that they would suffer the justice of God if they avenged the death of Abel.

4)      He gave grace to Noah and the earth. It took Noah 120 years but it was a 120-year warning period to warn the earth about the coming judgment. It was during that time that Noah and his sons went throughout the world preaching the gospel and yet there was no one who responded.

5)      He remembered Noah in Genesis 8 and Abraham in Genesis 19, and God blessed them and protected them.

6)      God provided water and protection in the wilderness for Hagar in Genesis 16.

7)      God preserved the righteous in the covenant in chapter 19.

8)      God intervenes time and time again when people fail, chapters 12, 20, 26, and he always supplies what is needed.

9)      He freely established His covenant and blessed deceptive Jacob.

10)   It is God who graciously sent angels to watch over and protect Jacob in Genesis 28 32. He watches over and protects us even when we don’t deserve it, even when we are in rebellion.

11)   He gave prosperity to Jacob in chapter 33; He prospered him.

12)   He blesses Egypt with the future knowledge of a coming famine, and provided Joseph as someone to lead them through the crisis in chapters 39ff.

Grace Orientation

What is Grace Orientation?

Aligning our thinking and actions with God’s policy of grace: that all that we are and have in this life comes from the kindness and benevolence of God, and that nothing is due to our own inherent abilities, talents, or efforts.

GRACE ORIENTATION

• Humility

• Authority orientation

• Relaxed mental attitude

• Mastery of the details of life

Grace Orientation

Grace Orientation                               RD/Kings 026

• Conforming or aligning our thinking toward people, situations, and events with God’s grace policy.

• Grace means that God has freely given us everything we need on the basis of who He is and what Christ did on the cross.

• Grace means that God will freely give to us everything we need (prosperity and adversity tests) to advance to spiritual maturity.

• Grace means that our relationship to God is not based on our merit, activities, or actions.

2 Pet. 1:3, “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

2 Pet. 1:4, “For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.”

2 Pet. 3:18, “But grow [by means of] the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

2 Cor. 12:9, “And He has said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.’”

Grain or Meal Offering

Grain or Meal Offering   RD/Heb 127c

The next offering that we’ll get into which is in Leviticus 2 is the grain offering or sometimes called the meal offering.  Or, you could even call it the tribute offering.  It is the bloodless offering.  Of these offerings that we have in Leviticus, it’s the only one that is bloodless.  It was a raw grain offering that was mixed with oil and it could be either raw (just the flour itself) and oil or it could be baked in an oven or baked in a pan or fried in a skillet.  There was to be no leaven or honey involved or used in the meal offering because this would picture corruption of some kind.  It was to be from the first fruits of the harvest.  It was also to be seasoned with salt.  Salt is a preservative so this is a picture of God’s preservation of the covenant with Israel.

Now as we get into a look at the grain offering in chapter 2, we read in verse 1:

NKJ Leviticus 2:1 'When anyone offers a grain offering to the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour. And he shall pour oil on it, and put frankincense on it.

So the word that we have here for fine flour is the word coleth in the Hebrew.  It referred to the finest of flour.  You take the grain and you have the whole grain and then you can take just the inner core of the grain.  This is referring to flour made from the inner part of the grain that was very valuable.  In fact in some passages it’s indicated to be as valuable as silver and gold.  Ezekiel 16:13 indicates that.  In II Kings 7:1 it is only served in the palace of the king.  So it indicated something that was extremely valuable and not something that was in everybody’s pantry.  It was a very fine flour.  This flour (because of its uniqueness and the fact that it is refined so that the very best of the flour) represents the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the offering of the first kind of offering (the raw flour offering), when the worshipper would pour oil on it this depicts the anointing of the Messiah, that He is the one that is anointed or appointed by God to carry out his particular task.  When the frankincense is added to it in the offering when a portion was then taken to be burned on the altar, then this would produce sweet savor offering, a sweet smell.  This indicates the fact that the Father is propitiated or satisfied.  He finds the sacrifice of Christ on the cross to be pleasing to Him.   Then the fact that this is a fine flour that is crushed and ground very finely is a picture of the fact that the Lord Jesus Christ was judged on our behalf.

There are four different types of meal offerings.  You have an uncooked version. Then you have three that are cooked.  The three that are cooked, they would take the flour and make small cakes of them.  Some would be baked in an oven like a Dutch oven.  Those baked in the oven, you couldn’t see what was going on inside the oven.  This is a picture of the unseen suffering of Christ on the cross as the Father covered the land with darkness so the people could not look upon the Lord at the time when the sins were poured on Him.  So this pictures the unseen suffering of the Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf.

The two other forms of the meal offering (frying cakes on the griddle which was a flat metal pan) pictured the visible suffering at the hands of man as did the frying pan where the cakes would be cooked inside a frying pan or skillet.  So you had a pan fried meal offerings.

A third form of the meal offering that’s mentioned here is indicated towards the end.  Look down to 2:14.

NKJ Leviticus 2:14 ' If you offer a grain offering of your firstfruits to the LORD, you shall offer for the grain offering of your firstfruits green heads of grain roasted on the fire,

Roasting on the fire is a picture of judgment.

grain beaten from full heads.

NKJ Leviticus 2:15 'And you shall put oil on it,

Again that placing of oil on it always depicts something related to anointing.

and lay frankincense on it. It is a grain offering.

...which would indicate the sweet savor.

So this form of the green ears is also a picture of what Jesus refers to in John 12:24 when he talked about the fact that unless the grain falls to the ground and dies, it can’t bring forth new life. Just as He is judged for our sins on the cross and dies; it is through His death, burial and resurrection that we receive new life in regeneration.  So this again pictures the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There is also a depiction in the oil of the sustaining ministry of the Holy Spirit.  Oil is often used in Scripture as a picture of the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.  During His life on the earth, Jesus Christ was sustained by the Holy Spirit.  We have passages such as Isaiah 11:1-2.

 NKJ Isaiah 11:1 There shall come forth a Rod from the stem of Jesse,

That would be the Lord Jesus Christ coming from the stem of Jesse, Jesse being David’s father coming out of that family.

And a Branch shall grow out of his roots.

NKJ Isaiah 11:2 The Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him, The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, The Spirit of counsel and might, The Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD.

The Holy Spirit sustained the Lord Jesus Christ and this is one of the prophecies related to that.  We see that the Holy Spirit was related to the baptism of Jesus when at His baptism the Father spoke from heaven and the people there would hear His voice.

NKJ Matthew 3:17 And suddenly a voice came from heaven, saying, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

Then the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove.

Right after that baptism is when the Lord Jesus Christ then was led by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days and nights of fasting.  Then He went through the three tests where Satan the Tempter came and tested him.  He is sustained through His testing through God the Holy Spirit.  Then when He goes to the cross, He is sustained on the cross while He is bearing our sins through God the Holy Spirit.

So the oil represents that sustaining ministry of God the Holy Spirit in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.  Now when you look at the grain offering, it also is a voluntary offering emphasizing the individual volition of every worshipper.  They would come and of their own free will they would bring this offering to the Lord and a portion (only a portion) of it was burned on the altar.  The rest is given to the priest.  Therefore this offering depicts the expansiveness and the sufficiency of God’s grace in supplying for the needs of the worshipper as well as for the priest.  So it emphasizes the sufficiency of God’s grace.  The main idea is that those who have been accepted by God express their gratitude and their dedication to Him through the meal offering.  It is from their very best from first fruits and is designed to express the fact that we recognize that all that we have is from Him because of what He has provided for us on the cross.

Hair; Culture; Long Hair

So Paul says: “…if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him.” It is an act of disrespect to himself and to God.

RD/1 Cor. 062

Summary

1)      Cultures have hair styles as well as dress that are distinctively feminine and distinctively masculine.

2)      Each sex should dress according to those standards. One of the ways Satan is using to break down our culture is to get people to think that sexes are interchangeable.

3)      To cross-dress dishonours the authority established over each from creation. When a woman dresses in a masculine way it dishonours her husband; when a man dresses in a feminine way it dishonours God.

4)      Generally this means that the issue isn’t really the length of hair but hair style. Though this does mean that men should have relatively short hair, it doesn’t necessarily mean a crew cut but a distinctively masculine hair style.

1 Corinthians 11:15 NASB “but if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her? For her hair is given to her for a covering.” We have to correct the translation here. Her hair isn’t given to her for a covering, the word has to do with a shawl. It is the word PERIBOLION [peribolion]. It should be “instead of a shawl.” Tat addresses the third group who thought maybe women should be wearing a veil or a shawl. He is saying it is the hair, the hairstyle, given to the woman instead of a literal covering.

1 Corinthians 11:16 NASB “But if one is inclined to be contentious [argumentative], we [the apostles] have no other practice, nor have the churches of God.” This is apostolic ruling.

Happiness

Happiness RD/Pro/011b

The First thing that must be acquired in life in order to experience a blessed life is a person has to be saved. He has to come to the cross and trust in Jesus Christ as savior. You cannot have a blessed life if you are unsaved. If you are spiritually dead, by definition you are divorced from the grace of God, divorced from the provision of God, outside of the family of God and still under the judgment and the consequences of spiritual death. Psalm 32:1-2

The Second thing is, as a believer the most significant requisite for happiness is to trust the Lord. Again and again and again the Scriptures make this brief point” “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.”,

Psalm 2:12 NASB “Do homage to the Son, that He not become angry, and you perish {in} the way, For His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!”

Psalm 34:8 NASB “O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him!” (Also Psalm 40:4; 84:5; 146:5; Proverbs 16:20) When we taste something we bring it into our life and make it part of our thinking. So we are to accept and receive the Lord and all of His Word into our life and we will have the experiential realization of His goodness. The result: “blessed is the man who takes refuge [trusts] in Him!” 

Psalm 84:12 NASB “O LORD of hosts, How blessed [happy] is the man who trusts in You!” 

Psalm 146:5 NASB “How blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, Whose hope is in the LORD his God.” The hope aspect moves us from simply trusting in God for help to He is our hope. That is a future focus. He is the one in whom our confident expectation resides.

Isaiah 30:18 uses the term “waiting on the Lord,” which is a synonym for trusting in Him: “Therefore the LORD longs to be gracious to you, And therefore He waits on high to have compassion on you. For the LORD is a God of justice; How blessed are all those who long [wait] for Him.”

The Third thing that we learn from the passages related to blessing is that the blessed man puts himself under the authority of the Word of God. The word of God is the defining issue in your life. This is seen is passages such as Psalm 119:1 NASB “How blessed are those whose way is blameless, Who walk in the law of the LORD.”

Proverbs 29:18 NASB “Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained, But happy is he who keeps the law.” This is a great verse for our generation because we live in a world where people cast off the authority of God’s Word, they want to do whatever they want to do, they don’t want the Bible or Christians telling them that there are absolute moral standards. But the Scripture says that happiness resides in keeping the law. For us that would be keeping the Word of God, the instruction of God’s Word.

1 Kings 10:8 NASB “How blessed are your men, how blessed are these your servants who stand before you continually {and} hear your wisdom.”

The Fourth is acquiring wisdom from a little bit of a negative: the man who doesn’t do certain things.

Psalm 1:1 NASB “How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, Nor stand in the path of sinners, Nor sit in the seat of scoffers!” Notice the progression: walking, to standing, to sitting. You start off walking around with the wrong crowd, you hang around with them, and then you just stand with them, sit down and reside with them in all of their human viewpoint error.

The Fifth is is what leads to real happiness in a person’s life.

Psalm 1:2 NASB “But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night.” Delight is in the law of the Lord. He is excited about studying the Word and learning what God has to say to him. He meditates continuously. This is a figure of speech. It doesn’t mean you are meditating on God’s Word every minute or every second so that we wouldn’t get anything else done, but it focuses the entirety of your life. You get up in the morning and focus by reading God’s Word and as you go through the day you reflect back upon what you have read. God the Holy Spirit brings to your mind principles and promises for you to claim during the day, and your life and your thinking is shaped by the Word of God.

The result: Psalm 1:3 NASB “He will be like a tree {firmly} planted by streams of water, Which yields its fruit in its season And its leaf does not wither; And in whatever he does, he prospers.” Notice that bringing forth fruit is in its season; it is not the same all the time. There are times when that fruit is manifest and times when it is not.

Psalm 1:4 NASB “The wicked [ungodly] are not so, But they are like chaff which the wind drives away.” The term ungodly is usually a term referring to unbelievers. They shall perish, v. 6; they are not going to stand in the judgment, v. 5.

Psalm 1:6 NASB “For the LORD knows the way of the righteous, But the way of the wicked will perish.” The way of the godly is to meditate on God’s Word. That is what we are called to do, that is what is expected of us.

The Sixth is: Blessedness or happiness is for the person who applies doctrine and grace to those around him. It is expressing the unmerited love of God through us and channeling it to those around us.

Psalm 41:1 NASB “How blessed is he who considers the helpless; The LORD will deliver him in a day of trouble.”

Proverbs 14:21 NASB “He who despises his neighbor sins, But happy is he who is gracious to the poor.”

Psalm 106:3 NASB “How blessed are those who keep justice, Who practice righteousness at all times!” Notice God doesn’t use pusillanimous words, wimpy, weak words, like “fair.” He uses strong words like righteousness and justice. Those communicate things. How do we know justice? How do we know that absolute standard? We go to God’s Word. Integrity is the path to happiness.

The Seventh is for those who obey the Word.

Isaiah 56:2 NASB “How blessed is the man who does this, And the son of man who takes hold of it; Who keeps from profaning the sabbath, And keeps his hand from doing any evil.”

The Eight is those who have a lot of children.

Psalm 127:5 NASB “How blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them; They will not be ashamed When they speak with their enemies in the gate.” There is blessing from having children and raising them in the nurture and admonition of the lord.   

The Ninth is blessedness in work, in labor, in fulfilling that which God has called you to do in terms of your job and your career.

Psalm 128:1, 2 NASB “How blessed is everyone who fears the LORD, Who walks in His ways. When you shall eat of the fruit of your hands, You will be happy and it will be well with you.” Enjoying the production of your own labor. Not having the government come in and confiscate it through excessive taxation.

The Tenth is is for the one who is disciplined by God. We should be happy when God corrects us.

Job 5:17 NASB “Behold, how happy is the man whom God reproves, So do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.”

The Eleventh is Blessed is the nation can be happy if they are focused on the Lord.

Psalm 32:12 NASB “Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD …” But when that is removed from the public market place of ideas the result is that we are going to have a nation of people who are miserable. And that is exactly what we see in our country and in many countries in the world. There is such instability internationally and that is because as never before in history we have a world population that has more and more committed to a path against God than ever before. The only path of happiness is to focus on the Lord.

Psalm 144:15 NASB “How blessed are the people who are so situated; How blessed are the people whose God is the LORD!” 

Happiness

There are four different approaches to happiness.

RD/F.O.L./001

   1. Pontius Pilate is the typical product of Greco-Roman culture.  He is the skeptic.  He doubts that there is such a thing as absolute truth.  We would call him a secular skeptic.

Then you have two religious groups.  The Jews represent all other religious groups.  You may say that they aren’t the same as a Hindu or a Buddhist or a Muslim, but these two groups of Jews represent all other religions in the world except Biblical Christianity.  When I talk about religion I am not talking about Biblical Christianity.  Religion is man trying to gain God’s approval, God’s blessing, or God’s approbation by his own works.  It is man thinking that if he engages in certain rituals or has a certain moral rectitude or if he lives a good life then God is going bless him.  Whatever heaven you believe in whether it is paradise or nirvana or whatever it may be, the idea is that you will arrive there after death because you have been a relatively good person.  That concept underscores every religious system in the world except Biblical Christianity.  This was evident among these two groups of Jews. 

 2. The Sadducees represent a more liberal form of religion.  They didn’t think anything was supernatural. 

3. The Pharisees represent a much more rigorous ethical group.  The Jewish fundamentalists as it were.  If we follow the Mosaic Law and all of the other thousands of laws in our tradition somehow that will meet God’s approval and He will save us.

   4. Over against the three groups you have the claims of Lord Jesus Christ. You have to catch the irony of the whole scene here. Pilate asks what truth is.   Jesus says that He is the truth.  He embodies the truth.  He is the eternal truth.  He claimed to be God.  There are those who claimed He was a good man or a prophet but that is not why they crucified him.  If He only claimed to be a good man or prophet the Jews would not have crucified Him.  That had Him there in front of Pilate because He claimed to be the God of the Old Testament.  He claimed to be full-undiminished deity.  The Jews clearly understood that.  Because they rejected his claim to be God, they were going to punish Him according to the law. It was a capital offense.   Because they were in a province of the Roman Empire, they did not have the freedom under the law to execute for capital crimes so they went before Pilate. So here you have Pilate skeptically questioning truth in the very face of the one who is Truth.  They had to go before the Roman authority.   He questions truth in the face of the one who is the truth.

Hendrances to Spiritual Growth

So in 3:16 Paul is informing them again of the foundation for the Corinthians’ spiritual life. And from there he is going to go into three hindrances to spiritual growth at the end of the chapter.   RD/1 Cor 023

1)      They had wrong teaching and doctrinal ignorance. There was doctrinal ignorance in the congregation. That is why he asked the question: “Do you not know this?” The implication is, no, they don’t know it because they are ignorant doctrinally even though they have good teachers. Peter has been there, Apollos has been there, and Paul has been there. They have had excellent pastors, excellent doctrinal teaching, and yet they apparently were negative and they didn’t understand it, and they didn’t apply it, and they didn’t exchange the human viewpoint in their souls for divine viewpoint.

2)      Wrong thinking or human viewpoint. We live in a culture that couches every problem in psychological verbiage. There is so much psycho-babel that we have picked up over the years that we don’t realize that that terminology itself just brings to the problem all of the baggage of human viewpoint. So we, too, deal with the problem of human viewpoint thinking.

3)      Wrong perspective. That is, a failure to understand grace and to have grace orientation.

Hermeneutics

Hermeneutics                           RD/Heb. 100b-101b

Greek:  hermeneou, dirived from the Greek god hermes, the messenger or interpreter of gods.

"to bring someone to an understanding of something; to explane or make clear, intelligible"

The science and art of interpreting the Bible.

When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, make no other sense. Therefore  take every word at is ordinary, usual, literal meaning, unless the facts of the immediate context studied in the light of related passages and axiomatic and fundamental truths indicates clearly otherwise.

       D. L. Cooper    Arnold Hruchtenbaum's pastor

The literalist (the so called literalist) is not one who denies that figurative language, that symbols, are used in prophecy nor does he deny that great spiritual truths are set forth therein; his position is, simply that the prophecies are to be normally interpreted (i.e., according to the received laws of language: as any other utterances are interpreted) – that which is manifestly figurative being so regarded.   

      Lange’s Commentary on Revelation

If God created man in His own rational image and endowed him with the power of speech, then a purpose of language, in fact the chief purpose of language would naturally be the revelation of truth to man and the prayers of man to God.  In a theistic philosophy one ought not to say that all language has been devised in order to describe and discuss the finite objects of our sense-experience.  On the contrary, language was devised by God, that is, God created man rational for the purpose of theological expression.  

     Gordon H. Clark

History

As we look at history I want to remind us of four things that we have seen: RD/1Sam/007b   1. While God controls or oversees history, history is the result of human decisions. On the microcosm, your life and my life are the result of all the decisions that we’ve made in life. Some of these are very small decisions that ended up having great consequences. Some of them were decisions that we thought would have great consequences that actually didn’t. Some of the decisions that we made we thought were good, wise decisions. Later we weren’t so sure. Sometimes God lets us make good, wise decisions but the results aren’t always positive. Always this is a thing to warn yourself against. You can evaluate a set of circumstances. You can seek wise counsel. You can study all the pros and cons and reach a conclusion that a certain course of action is the wisest course of action, and it’s the course of action where I can most glorify God; and as you take that path, you think all the good things are going to happen; and then it doesn’t. Then everything falls apart.   How many times in Scripture have we seen great believers face great opposition? Just think of the Apostle Paul. The Lord Jesus Christ Himself commissioned Paul to a course of action. He didn’t just have some mystical subjective vision and say, “Well this is God’s will because Jesus spoke to me.” I mean when Jesus said, that Jesus really had spoken to him. He made the decision he was going to follow the Lord and that he was going to take the gospel to the Gentiles. But what happened? He was persecuted. The Judaizers followed him: and slandered him. They maligned him. They stirred up riots against him.  He was beaten. He was arrested and thrown in jail; and numerous other hardships he faced. And yet he never said, “Well it’s getting a little rough; maybe this wasn’t God’s will; maybe this wasn’t a wise decision.”   Many times the right decision doesn’t always feel right after you make it, because when we’re doing the right thing in the devil’s world, there’s often a lot of opposition. God controls and oversees history, but history is the result of human decisions. Your life is the result of human decisions, and when we put a bunch of humans together, then we have even greater decisions. God oversees it, but not at the expense of individual human responsibility and human decisions. So when humans make bad decisions, there are horrible consequences. But God is still in control.   2. We’ve learned that the causative factor in history isn’t economics. It’s not which school of economics you hold to. It is not whether you’re even a capitalist or a utilitarian, or whether you are a Marxist or a Socialist; none of that matters. What matters is your relationship to God. When Israel is told in , “If you obey Me then these things are going to happen, you are going to have plenty of rain.” In other words, your obedience spiritually is going to impact the environment.   We could almost have a doctrine here related to anthropogenic global disaster. It’s due to sin, folks! That’s what the Bible says. If you walk with the Lord, He is going to provide the right kind of climate, and you’re going to have prosperity. You’re going to win battles, 10,000 will set to flight 100,000. It doesn’t have anything to do with your military theory, your technology, or your military skill and training. It ultimately has to do with that causative reality God sets into the warp and woof of human existence: and that is our relationship to Him. If we’re walking with Him, and this applies nationally as well as individually, God is going to take care of the details. If you’re not, then God is going to take care of your tail. One way or the other, He’s either going to give you a spiritual whipping, or He is going to protect you and prosper you, depending on your relationship. That’s the causative issue, our relationship with God.   That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t focus on learning the best economical system, political system, and all these other things. Certainly we should do that; but the end result is, and the bottom line is, the causative factor: is our relationship to God. It is not fatalistic determinism or materialism or Marxism. History isn’t something that’s purely random; nor is it cyclical like the Greeks thought or the ancient Hindus thought. Even modern Hinduism thinks it’s cyclical, that it just goes around and around and around. We do see that there are cycles in history. We saw cycles in Judges, didn’t we? As it goes in a direction, history always goes forward even though there may be cycles within that history. The ultimate causative factor is how people respond to the revelation of God. We believe, and the Bible teaches, that history has meaning, purpose, and direction that is defined by God. We can’t get to that unless we submit to the revelation of God.   3. Failure in history is the result of rebellion against God. When people rebel against God, it always leads to collapse. There are certain patterns. I’ve gone over these in other lessons, and I’m not going to spend a lot of time on it now; but if you rebel against God’s authority, you put the authority where? Somewhere in creation. Usually that’s right in the center of the human skull, between the ears. The emphasis is on human ability, human mental ability, human intelligence to be able to solve the problems. So we have this cycle in ancient Greece where the philosophers rejected the mythology of the Greeks that religion doesn’t solve anything, so “we’re going to turn to philosophy.” Well, philosophy ultimately couldn’t solve the problems that face the human race, and so the intellectual solution was thrown out and replaced by the irrational solution.   4. The rational solution is thrown out and replaced by the irrational and the mystical solution. Because what happens when you lose faith in human reason is you become skeptical. We can’t live as skeptics. Skepticism always leads to mysticism. I got a master’s degree in philosophy at the University of St. Thomas, and one of my professors in medieval philosophy was a guy by the name of Father Kennedy. One day in class as my eyelids were about half closed and he was droning on, I heard him make the statement that rationalism always fails and leads to skepticism, and skepticism always leads to mysticism. I shot up bolt right and wrote that down. That was the best thing I’d heard anybody say. That was worth the cost of all those courses because that summed it up in a nutshell. Only a couple of times in history have we been rescued from the collapse that will always come from mysticism.

History, Three Pirnciples emphasized in

Three Principles that are Emphasized in History

RD/Heb 138c

   1. God is never defeated though God’s people may be defeated.  God and His plan are never defeated.  I think that’s a particularly appropriate principle in light of this election year.  There are so many people that are very upset, depressed, discouraged with news related to the election.  We have to understand that history is under the control of God and however the election goes – this is how God is working out history.  Just because someone who we do not believe is the right person or the right people get elected and we don’t have good leaders…  This nation is filled with people who do not have the integrity and the knowledge and the wisdom - any orientation to Scripture or reality whatsoever on both sides of the aisle to function as leaders of this nation.  So we have to recognize that most of the time we have choices between somebody who is 100% bad and somebody who is 90% bad.  Most of theses leaders are just going to take us in the wrong direction, but they’re not the Leader we are trusting in.

NKJ Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD: "Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD.

We are to trust in the Lord. God is never defeated.  His plan will work itself out.

   2. The second principle related to that is God is greater than anything in human history.   He defeated the Philistines.  He made fun of the Philistines.  God is the one who ultimately will demand respect and to be treated ultimately with honor and respect as per in Israel when He returns. 

   3. God does not need us to protect Him or to give Him security or to take care of Him.  God is perfectly capable of making sure that His plan works itself out in history.

Holy Spirit at Regeneration, Seven Ministries of God the

7 Ministries of God the Holy Spirit At Regeneration

(1) Efficacious Grace. Efficacious grace is the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to the believer in Christ, or the work of the Holy Spirit, which enables the believer to have an effective faith in Christ as Savior. It is the Holy Spirit picking up a person’s positive signals of faith in Christ and carrying them to the point of salvation. When the spiritually dead person believes in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit takes that faith and makes it effective for salvation. The origin of our faith is from a spiritually dead person, and therefore it has no ability in itself. Spiritual death means total inability to do anything by which we can enter into an eternal relationship with God. Therefore, the Holy Spirit’s ministry at salvation is one of fantastic grace, making our faith effectual.

(2) The second ministry of the Holy Spirit at salvation is called regeneration. It is taught in Tit 3:5; 1 Pet 1:23. Regeneration is often called being “born again,” because that’s the way it is described in Jn 3:1-18, in our Lord’s discussion with Nicodemus. Verses 6-7, “That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say to you: you must be born again.” Regeneration is the technical term for being “born again.” Being born again is a result of faith in Jesus Christ, occurring at the instant you personally believe in Jesus Christ. The moment God the Holy Spirit creates a human spirit, God the Father imputes eternal life to that human spirit. So regeneration means the creation of a human spirit for the imputation of eternal life. The soul is the residence of human life; the human spirit is the residence of eternal life.

(3) The Baptism of the Spirit. At the moment we believed in Christ, God the Holy Spirit took each one of us and entered us into union with the person of Jesus Christ. As a result of being in union with Christ, we share what Christ has.

(a) We share His eternal life (1 Jn 5:11-12), giving us a double portion of eternal life.

(b) We share His righteousness, giving us a double portion.

(c) We share Christ’s destiny under predestination.

(d) We share Christ’s election.

(e) We share in His royalty as His royal family.

(f) We become a new spiritual species.

(4) The Indwelling of the Holy Spirit. At the moment you believe in Christ, God the Holy Spirit indwells your body, 1 Cor 3:16, 6:19-20; 2 Cor 6:16. 1 Cor 6:19-20, “Your body is a temple of the Spirit who is in you.” The purpose of the indwelling of the Spirit is to provide a temple for the indwelling of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory. This is necessary because we all have the old sin nature resident in the cell structure of our bodies, with a predilection to sin in certain areas. Just as Christ indwelt the Holy of Holies in the temple in Jerusalem as a guarantee of blessing to Israel, so He indwells us as a guarantee of our escrow blessings. He lives in your body as a greater guarantee of blessing than the guarantee given to Israel. The indwelling of Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit have nothing to do with your spiritual life experientially. It is the filling of the Holy Spirit that has to do with your spiritual life. The filling of the Spirit is when the believer “walks by means of the Spirit,” where the Holy Spirit controls his soul, which is distinct from his body. So the indwelling of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit are not related; they are separate ministries. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with your personal life, how you act, or how you conduct your life.

(5) The Filling of the Holy Spirit. We are filled with the Spirit at salvation. Thereafter, the believer is filled with the Spirit, which is the same as being under the enabling power of the Spirit, and this continues as long as he does not sin. When we sin, we lose the filling of the Holy Spirit and enter into Satan’s cosmic systems. In cosmic one, we grieve the Spirit. In cosmic two, we quench the Spirit. But through the use of the rebound technique, we can once again become filled with the Spirit.

(6) The Sealing Ministry of the Holy Spirit. The sealing ministry of the Spirit is found in Eph 1:13-14, 4:30. The sealing ministry of the Spirit is a signature guarantee of:

(a) The Holy Spirit’s ministry in efficacious grace.

(b) Eternal life.

(c) Eternal security in time.

(d) Your portfolio of invisible assets.

Both the indwelling of Christ and the sealing of the Holy Spirit guarantees our escrow blessings.

(7) The Sovereign Distribution of Spiritual Gifts to each Believer. After the first generation of the royal family, God the Holy Spirit is involved in all subsequent distribution of spiritual gifts, 1 Cor 12:11. At the very moment you believed in Jesus Christ, you were given a spiritual gift. The distribution of spiritual gifts is the basis for administration and service in the royal family.

Holy Spirit Relationship to

Relationship to God the Holy Spirit is crucial in this Church Age.   RD/Gal/053

It is crucial to our growth spiritually. It is not just learning doctrine, not just doing certain activities overtly or even thinking certain thoughts inwardly as much as it is something that is empowered and motivated by a right relationship with God the Holy Spirit.

a)                          Efficacious grace: the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to the believer at the moment of salvation—Romans 8:28-30. This is the specific ministry of the Holy Spirit who acknowledges the faith of the unbeliever and transforms the faith of that spiritually dead person into something effective for salvation. Remember we are not saved because of our faith, we are saved through faith. Ephesians 2:8,9 makes that clear, it is the preposition DIA [dia] plus the genitive of PISTIS [pistij]. Genitive means “through”. DIA plus the genitive means “through.” If it was the accusative case it would mean “because.” God the Holy Spirit is very precise. We are not saved because we believe, that would put the location of the merit on us because we were wise enough to believe. But when it is through faith, faith is simply the means of appropriating salvation and it puts all of the merit in the object of faith which is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross.

b)                          Regeneration is defined as spiritual birth or being born again—John3:3-7; Titus 3:5. At that moment we pass from spiritual death to spiritual life, and at the same instant that the human spirit is imparted to us God the Father imputes to it His very own life, eternal life. So we have eternal life as a possession that can never be lost.  

c)                          Baptism by means of the Holy Spirit—1 Corinthians 12:13. This occurs also at the instant of salvation and at that instant every believer is identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. At the moment of faith lone in Christ alone God the Holy Spirit identifies us (that is the significance of baptism. The literal meaning of baptism is to dip, plunge, or immerse, but the significance is identification) We enter into an eternal union with Christ. He places us into Christ, into His body. At that instant we are created a new spiritual species, 2 Corinthians 5:17. So the believer is placed in a permanent union with Christ and this is the basis of our positional sanctification.

d)                          The indwelling of the Holy Spirit. There is a difference between the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, the baptism of God the Holy Spirit, and the filling of God the Holy Spirit. They are distinct words and they are distinct ministries. Unfortunately, especially in the Pentecostal holiness camp, they have viewed those words as synonyms, so they really get confused because they think the indwelling and the baptism are all the same. The indwelling of God the Holy Spirit is a Holy Spirit is a permanent possession of every single believer—1 Corinthians 3:16; 6:19. At the moment of salvation God the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in the believer. He transforms our bodies into a temple for the simultaneous indwelling of Jesus Christ as the Shekinah Glory. We are indwelt by God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. This has never happened before in human history. In the Old Testament the filling of the Holy Spirit was not based on a relationship with God the Holy Spirit because they did not have a relationship with God the Holy Spirit. Only a very few people, less than a hundred, in all of the Old Testament were endued by God the Holy Spirit and it was always related to their job or their function in terms of theocratic leadership. It could be lost and it was a ministry that was designed to give them wisdom and skill in the arena of leadership. The best illustration is the temple and tabernacle craftsmen. The basic mean of the Hebrew word is skill, and it came to mean wisdom because wisdom is the ability to learn information and then to transform that and apply it skillfully in life, to create something beautiful with your life that glorifies God. But its root meaning is skill and we see that in the craftsmen who worked on the tabernacle and temple. Enduement was simply to give them that skill, and it was the same thing with the rulers, the prophets and priests under the ministry of inspiration. In the Old Testament it was a temporary ministry of God the Holy Spirit; in the New Testament it is permanent. No believer can lose the indwelling of God the Holy Spirit, it is a permanent possession.

e)                          The filling of the Holy Spirit. However Old Testament enduement is contrasted with the New Testament filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit mandated in Ephesians 5:18. Because it is an imperative mood there for PLEROO [plhrow] that means you either will or you will not be filled. The believer is always indwelt but he may or may not be filled. The filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit, therefore, is going to be related to the believer’s volition, because whenever you have an imperative that is directed toward your volition and you can either apply it or not apply it, obey or disobey, it is specifically related to the recall and application of Bible doctrine. So we see that the two sources of power in the Church Age relate to the filling of the Holy Spirit and Bible doctrine.

f)                           The sealing ministry of God the Holy Spirit. This takes place at the moment of salvation and is related to the doctrine of eternal security. The seal is an analogy taken from the Roman empire where it was a signature of ownership. At salvation the believer has the seal of God placed upon him. This is a signature guarantee which means that he can never lose his salvation because he is in Christ—Ephesians 1:13; 4:30.

g)                          The distribution of spiritual gifts. At the moment of salvation every believer is given at least one spiritual gift. Do not confuse the spiritual gifts with natural abilities, to natural talent. Spiritual gifts are specific ministries to be used in the local church. That means that their development and use is going to be related to the believer’s advance to spiritual maturity.

Holy Spirit, Seven Ministries of the

The Seven Ministries of the Holy Spirit to the believer RD/Gal/023

1.       Common grace. This is the undeserved merit and favour of God toward all mankind, believer and unbeliever alike. Scriptures refer to the fact that God causes the rain to fall on the saved and the unrighteous. In fact, the Word of God is common grace because God provides that so that all man can come eventually to a knowledge of the saving work of Jesus Christ if they are positive to doctrine.

2.       Efficacious grace. This is that grace which is effective towards something. Remember, at the moment of salvation we are spiritually dead and can do nothing. Our faith has value, not because it has value in and of itself. There is only one kind of faith and that is the faith that looks to Jesus Christ alone for salvation. Being spiritually dead whatever we do has no value. So we exercise positive volition at the point of gospel hearing and we put our faith alone in Christ alone. God the Holy Spirit takes that faith in Christ and makes it effective for salvation so that we are saved through faith.

3.       Regeneration. This is a technical theological term that derives from the Scripture. Titus 3:5. Regeneration is also referred to as the new birth or the second birth and is that process whereby God the Holy Spirit creates in us a new human spirit and imparts that to us. Because of that new human spirit we can now have a relationship with God and we can grow spiritually.

4.       Baptism by means of the Holy Spirit. What takes place at the baptism by means of the Holy Spirit is that God the Son uses the Holy Spirit to place us/identify us with His death burial and resurrection and to identify us in Christ. So we are said as believers to be in Christ; we are one with Christ and united together in His body. This takes place at salvation; it is not an experience; it is not evidenced by anything. The only way we can know that we have been baptised by means of the Holy Spirit (or any of these ministries of the Holy Spirit) is by going to God’s Word and learning them from passages there. We do not experience them.

5.       We are sealed. Sealing of the Holy Spirit has to do with the Roman concept where a person had a signet ring with his personal family seal on it. When he took that seal and placed it on something it was a sign of ownership, of possession. The sealing of the Holy Spirit is that act whereby God the Father seals us permanently as His possession. It is related to our adoption into the family of God. We can never lose our salvation.

6.       Indwelling. God the Holy Spirit takes up permanent residence in the believer. It has to do also with the indwelling of the Shekinah glory of the Lord Jesus Christ in every believer, for it is God the Holy Spirit who creates the temple, the inner sanctuary for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer.

7.       Filling. The filling of the Holy Spirit is temporary. The believer can lose that the moment he sins. The Scripture says that when we sin we are grieving the Holy Spirit or we are quenching the Holy Spirit. Quench means to put out a fire. So the Holy Spirit’s ministry is being ignored. When we quench or grieve the Holy Spirit we commit some sin and we go from the status of spirituality to the status of carnality. In the status of spirituality we are under the filling of the Holy Spirit but when we sin, grieve or quench the Holy Spirit we are now under the influence of the sin nature. From that point on everything we do, even the good works that we perform are on the basis of the flesh, not on the basis of the Holy Spirit.

Homosexuality, The Myths about

The myths about homosexuality       RD/Gen. 104b

1)      The myth that homosexuality is normal, healthy and desirable. Their view is: “Homosexuality is not an illness, it is not something that needs to be cured, we are normal, healthy and natural people.” Contrary to that we have statements such as the biblical statement in Romans 1:24-32 which clearly states that homosexuality, whether it is male to male or woman to woman, is unnatural. Second, we have to recognize that every human being is distorted and warped by the fall. We don’t have a right to look down our nose at others because of their sin. But what we do have a right to do is take a stand for what ought to be, what is the absolute, but in a non-judgmental manner. Third, just because something feels right doesn’t make it right. Remember, to someone who was born blind, blindness seems normal. The Bible defines what normal is, not our feelings. So our conclusion is that homosexuality is not natural or normal.

In 1973, due to pressure form the gay rights movement, the American Psychiatric Association [APA] declassified homosexual activity as a mental disorder. Let’s look at why they did that.

First of all in the three years leading up to that were marked by extreme protests, physical violence, disruptions, and chaos at the meetings of the APA. Intimidation was the rule. Finally in 1973 they mailed out a ballot to the 25,000 members of the APA and only twenty-five percent (about 6000) responded, and fifty-eight percent of those voted in favor of declassifying homosexuality as a mental disorder. Dr. Charles Socarides, who was at the meetings and was an expert in the area of homosexuality had some interesting comments to make regarding this. He said: “Militant homosexual groups continued to attack any psychiatrist or psychoanalyst who dared to present his findings as to psychopathology of homosexuality before national or local meetings of psychiatrists or in public forums. In other places he referred to the decision of 1973 as the “medical hoax of the century.” (At the time he wrote this he has been involved in the study of homosexuality for over twenty years and was one of the nation’s leading experts on homosexuality) In 1977, as a follow-up to the 1973 decision, ten thousand members of the APA were polled at random, and sixty-nine per cent of those polled said that homosexuality was a pathological adaptation. Eighteen per cent of the members polled disagreed with that statement and thirteen per cent weren’t sure.

Is homosexuality healthy? Only ten percent of homosexuals are relatively monogamous  or, in terms of the Institute For Sex Research, relatively less promiscuous. Sixty per cent of homosexuals have more than two hundred and fifty lifetime sex partners. Twenty-eight per cent have more than a thousand lifetime sex partners. Seventy-nine per cent admit that more than half of their sex partners are strangers. Lesbians, though they are less promiscuous than males, are more volatile and unstable in their relationships. This does not fit anyone’s definition of that which is healthy.

In contrast, the Bible says that any sexual activity outside of marriage is fornication and is a sin, and therefore is destructive. Sin by definition is self-destructive. There are forty-four references to fornication in the Bible, all in he context of describing it as sin. Homosexuality is never mentioned anywhere in the Bible in a positive context.

Congressman William Denemier made the comment that “if homosexuality is a perversion of what is natural then homosexuals must look at their own conduct in an entirely different light and explain it in less satisfying terms.” This is the point. They keep pressing this issue that it is normal, healthy and desirable because if it is not then they have to do some serious self-examination. In arrogance, none of us like to do any self-examination. Our sins make us comfortable, thank you very much, and we just don’t want to change. (I don’t know why they get the right to legitimize their sins; I want to legitimize my sins!)    

2)      The myth that homosexuals are born that way. This is perhaps the most promoted widespread myth and the most erroneously held myth. There is, first of all, no evidence of a gay gene, none whatsoever. Just think about it: if there was a gay gene, and if homosexuality was inherited, it would have died out. This whole idea of a gay gene was allegedly substantiated by a 1991 study by Simon Levett who admits himself that he was biased in his analysis because he is a homosexual. It was a flawed study for a number of reasons. His research consisted of studying the brains of forty-one cadavers, including nineteen homosexual males. He found in his conclusion that a tiny area of the brain believed to control sexual activity was less than half the size in gay men than heterosexuals. This study was immediately seized upon as a reputable evidence that homosexuals are born gay, that there is something inherent and biological, and so it is not volitional and has nothing to do with environment, it has to do with their being born that way, they can’t do anything about it. However, this whole study doesn’t resolve anything because there wasn’t enough data to determine whether or not the smaller hypothalamus was there at birth or whether it was the result of homosexual activity. Furthermore there were other problems indicated in the study. All nineteen of the homosexual men had died of AIDS. So what the smaller hypothalamus related to AIDS or sexuality. A second problem was that there was no way to know the sexual history of the alleged heterosexual men, some of them may have been bi-sexual. Third, there was no way to determine if the smaller hypothalamus’s were the cause or the result of homosexuality. And finally, Dr. Levett admitted that it was not a dispassionate scientific study because he was homosexual himself.

Then there had been a twin study where identical twins were looked at who were both homosexual to see what the percentage of concordances where both of the twins are homosexual. William H. Master, co-director of the Masters and Johnston Institute well know for studies in sexuality, stated that the genetic theory of homosexuality has been generally discarded today. John Decheko, professor of psychiatry at San Francisco State University, and also editor of the 25-volume Journal of Homosexuality, wrote in a 1989 USA Today article: “The idea that people are born into one type of sexual behavior is entirely foolish. Homosexuality is a behavior and not a condition and something that some people can and do change, just like they sometimes change other tastes and personality traits.” This is from a homosexual. The twin studies were based on a study in 1991 by Bailey and Pellard and they admitted that there were methodological flaws in the study. The subjects they recruited were volunteers who volunteered through advertisements in homosexual journals, so there was a flawed study group to begin with. Other twin studies that have been done since then have failed to support their findings. They said that in 52% of the twins that they studied one was homosexual or both were homosexual, but nothing else has substantiated that number at all. Remember that if genetics were the determinate then the results would need to be one hundred per cent concordance because in identical twins they have the same exact DNA. 

3)      The myth that homosexuals make up ten per cent of the population. This has been quoted in periodicals and newspapers like USA Today—25-million Americans are homosexual; The Washington Times states, Ten per cent of men and five per cent of women are homosexual; The American Psychiatric Association said ten per cent of Americans are homosexual. Where do they get this number? It comes from a 148 study done by William Kinsey. In that study he looked at 5,300 subjects. Twenty-five per cent of those 5,300 participants in that study were prison inmates and forty-four per cent had had homosexual relations in prison. So it is a flawed study. Several hundred male prostitutes were also included in the study. So there was a loaded study group to begin with. Furthermore, his conclusion is really misstated. What he concluded was that ten per cent of white males were more or less exclusively homosexual for at least three years between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five. He doesn’t conclude that ten per cent of American males are homosexual. His conclusion was vastly different from that but, as is typical of popular media, what you get is a distorted version of the conclusion that is popularized. In the years 1984 to 1988 there was the Forman study which concluded that only one point seven (1.7) percent of American males were homosexual. The University of Chicago in 1989 had a study which concluded that less than one per cent of American males were exclusively homosexual. (We have been brainwashed by the propaganda machine of the gay movement)

4)      The myth that change is impossible. This just is not true. As believers we know that change is always possible. God is in the business of changing us from dirty rotten stinking sinners who are self-absorbed to believers who are mature and who bring their sin nature under control through walking by means of the Holy Spirit. The “fact” that change is impossible is contradicted by the large number of testimonials from ex-gays. We conclude that through the Spirit of God and the Word of God all sin can be dealt with. So we collapse the entire foundation for the gay rights agenda.

How Does Satan Blind Men Today

How does Satan Blind Men   RD/Gal/002

One way is through religion. True biblical Christianity is not a religion. A religion means that man does the work and then God blesses it, whereas Christianity is a relationship with God because it is based upon the fact that Jesus Christ did the work—God does all the work and man simply accepts it. One the basis of the work of Christ man is able to have a personal relationship with God that is not based on a series of rituals, a series of commandments, or a series of taboos. What man always wants to do is somehow come up with rituals or some kind of legalistic rules and regulations in order to impress God and have some kind of assurance of eternal destiny.

A second way Satan blinds men is through rationalism, through reason. This is what happened in the 19th century Protestant liberalism. The idea was that if man’s intellectual powers are so great then we can then evaluate the Bible to find out what is false just on the basis of our intellect.

Third, and very prominent today, Satan distracts people from the gospel through emotionalism, especially through the subjectivity of a lot of mysticism—How do you know God? Because I feel it. We know Him through the Word, not because of our feelings.

Satan uses all the details of life—materialism details, the details of work, the details of relationships, the details of pleasure. All of these things get in the way when people are more consumed with living their lives, enjoying their lives and the pleasures, and dealing with the problems, their adversities, their heartaches, their careers. They don’t have time for God.

How is the Pastor-Teacher to be Faithful

So how is the Pastor-Teacher to be Faithful?

 RD/1 Cor. 026

1)      He is to be faithful in his preparation. As he begins to grow and mature in his spiritual life it will become evident to the man who has this gift that he has it, and he needs to begin to prepare and utilize that gift, just as any other believer in the body of Christ is to utilize their spiritual gift.

2)      He is to be faithful to continue his education (not only his preparation). All you get in seminary are the seeds of your education and you spend the rest of your life as a pastor learning more and more.

3)      Pastors need to be faithful in time management. One of the greatest challenges of a pastor is to manage his time and his priorities. While his primary responsibility is to study and teach he also has responsibilities to lead the congregation. The smaller the congregation the more he has other responsibilities in terms of administration, and things of that nature. He has his own personal responsibilities, in his own spiritual growth and spiritual life. Then he has responsibilities in terms of his family.

4)      He is not to try and reinvent the wheel. The pastor doesn’t have to try and reinvent everything, he can build on what others have done.

5)      He is not to simply warm up someone else’s leftovers.

6)      The danger to the pastor-teacher is arrogance. There is antinomian arrogance in many pastors, they don’t want to be accountable to anyone in any area. There is authority arrogance where some pastors seek to extend their authority beyond the pulpit and to actually get in the face of people in their daily lives. There is financial arrogance where pastors seek to fleece the sheep and are motivated by money. There is academic arrogance where those who have seminary training look down on those who don’t. There is success arrogance. It is always wrong for the pastor to get his eyes on someone else’s ministry, on its size, on its expansion, the lifestyle of some other pastor.

7)      Pastors are not expected by the Lord to do anything beyond feeding the sheep. They shouldn’t get involved in politics, hospital visitation, or administration. All of these things distract the pastor.

8)      A good pastor-teacher is going to think outside of the box of traditional church implementation. By this is not meant that he is going to come up with new ideas such as the new idea of church growth or innovative culturally-relevant programs, or that he going to use music that isn’t traditional. He is going to think in terms of the job of the pastor-teacher which is to equip believers to do the work of the ministry. The job of the pastor is to teach people in the pew how to think about life biblically. That’s it; everything else is secondary. If he is not accomplishing that it doesn’t matter what else is being accomplished, he is failing to be faithful, a faithful steward of the ministry of God.  

Human Viewpoint Wisdom

Human viewpoint wisdom                       RD/Rev. 132c

1.       All human wisdom is equated with demonic thinking.

2.       It is demonic thinking because it glorifies the creature over the creator. It locates ultimate truth in the creation and not in the revelation of the creator.

3.       The essence of this thinking involves two concepts: autonomy, independence from God (the creature thinks that somehow he can make life work apart from what God says) and, secondly, antagonism to God.

4.       In these attributes lie the roots of all human thoughts systems not based on the Word of God. All human thought systems ultimately lead to a path of self-destruction for the creature.

Humility

Humility   RD/James/033

1)      Humility emphasizes true objectivity and a lack of arrogance.

2)      This includes authority orientation, which means respect for the authority of God the Father and the authority of Jesus Christ, and the Word of God which is the mind of Christ.

3)      Humility is teachability. Psalm 25:8-9 NASB “Good and upright is the LORD; Therefore He instructs sinners in the way. He leads the humble in justice, And He teaches the humble His way.” Without humility one cannot learn the plan of God and the purposes of God, and when a believer acts on arrogance he makes himself an enemy of God and antagonistic to the plan of God.

4)      Every believer has the opportunity to learn Bible doctrine on the basis of the filling of the Holy Spirit and humility. Humility is what keeps the person in the status of teachability.

5)      Teachability recognizes two things: the authority of the teacher and the content of the message. 

‎Summary

‎1)      Only Bible doctrine provides objectivity for honest self-evaluation. It is the only way you can know yourself; only the Bible can tell you exactly the way you are; it defines reality.

‎2)      Thus humility is the pre-requisite. We all know that if anybody tells us how things really are in our life we need a tremendous amount of humility to accept it. We can’t let arrogance get in the way or it will destroy our objectivity.

‎3)      Without humility the response will be self-deception and arrogance and denial of reality.

‎4)      Without humility doctrine will never become anything more than simple academic knowledge and will have no spiritual value.

Hynm, Seven Observations about Good

Seven observations about this song that apply to any good hymn    Rev. 142b

1.      It is God-centred. It is not about Deborah, her feelings, her focus on her anxiety level, in terms of the fact that they might have been overpowered by the 900 chariots. The focus is not on man but upon God and what He did; it is theocentric.

2.      It is a hymn of joy. They are exulting and having a party and celebrating, and celebration is another word that is a synonym for worship. It is a celebration of the grace of God because of the victory that he has given them. Do they deserve it? No, they don’t, but God has given it to them in His grace.

3.      It is a new song. Why? Because God has acted in history in a new way, and because God has acted in a new way they are going to compose a new song to commemorate it so that this song can be sung down through the generations, and the generations that live some 3-400 years later, a thousand years later, 2000 years later, will sing this song and will have a connection through the centuries to the events that occurred in Judges chapter five. The reason for making that point is because what is happening today in a lot of contemporary Christianity is the rejection out of hand good traditional hymns, and there is this temporal arrogance that says that is old, this is new. When we quit singing the hymns of Martin Luther, Isaac watts, the Wesleys and others of centuries ago, what we do is take the current generation and cut them off from the historical body of Christ, and from the generations that have gone before and the songs that they sang in praise to God. It creates this kind of temporal arrogance that somehow we have a new greater spirituality and that what God is doing to us is superior to what he did in the past, and it isolates the present generation from the works of God in history. That is just counter of everything that the Bible says. These songs are designed to be sung down through the centuries so that we remember all of the things that God has done and how He has acted in history.

4.      The focus is not on the misery, the sorrow or the guilt of Israel related to their previous disobedience. The focus is on the provision of God.

5.      It is well-crafted poetry. The lyrics are written well. If they are taken away from the music and we just read the lyrics we are impressed with the quality of the poetry. It stands alone. Any good lyrics for any good hymn should be able to stand alone as good poetry.

6.      The word translated “sing” in verse 12 is the Hebrew word dabar basically means “word”; it can also mean a matter, a thing, a concept. Here it has the idea of singing because of the context.

7.      The theme of the song is to rehearse specifically on how God has delivered His people. So they can think precisely about what God has done. If we think about the better hymns that we sing the vocabulary that is used guides our thinking to think precisely about what God has done in our salvation, how God specifically works in the lives of people.

Application

1.       Hymns should be theocentric and no anthropocentric. It is not focusing on me and my misery, it is focusing on God and what he has done. Even in the lament psalms when David us talking about how miserable he is because of his sin, it is simply to set up the praise section and the focus on God. He is not wallowing in self-pity.

2.       The lyrics should be well crafted.

3.       The content of the hymn is to cause the singer to think outside of himself, beyond the things that happened yesterday, the challenges at work, the people who are gossiping about him, and other problems, and to focus our thinking on the character of God, the grace of God, the work of God in history, and to focus on Jesus Christ and what he has done for us. Te purpose has to do with helping us direct our thinking, and when we sing they should be a prelude to the study of God’s Word. In singing it begins to take our attention away from the cares and the distractions of life and to focus on the God who is above the cares and the distractions of our life and who has provided us with the eternal solutions. So the focus of worship, then, is always on God. 

Hypostatic Union

Hypostatic Union   RD/Heb 133c

The hypostatic union describes the person of the incarnate Christ as the union of two natures, divine and human, in the one person of Jesus Christ. These two natures are inseparably united without loss or mixture of separate identity, without loss or transfer of properties or attributes, the union being both personal and eternal. Jesus is undiminished deity and true humanity in one person forever (John 1:14; Heb. 1:2–3; 1 John 4:2).

Hypostatic Union

Hypostatic Union     RD/John 099

John 17:1-3 NASB “Jesus spoke these things; and lifting up His eyes to heaven, He said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify Your Son, that the Son may glorify You, even as You gave Him authority over all flesh, that to all whom You have given Him, He may give eternal life. This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’.”

A key concept in this whole prayer is glory, and glorification means to bring honour and respect to God. One of the roles of Jesus Christ is that He is the one who bestows eternal life. He does that not because of who we are or what we have done. Salvation is totally dependent on who Jesus Christ is. So if Jesus Christ is not God He is not perfect, He does not possess perfect righteousness, He would have been born a man tainted by sin. That is the purpose for the virgin conception and virgin birth, for the sin nature, we are told in Scripture, is passed down through the male, not through the woman. It wasn’t Eve’s sin that caused the fall of the human race, it was Adam’s sin: “In Adam all died.” What happened in the virgin conception was that God the Holy Spirit supernaturally fertilised the ovum in Mary’s womb, so that by bypassing a human father Jesus does not inherit a sin nature from a father. He is born impeccable. That means He was born without sin and He did not possess a sin nature. Without a sin nature means that Jesus was born without the imputation of Adam’s sin and therefore He is born perfect. He is born as Adam was created, without sin, and He is therefore going to pass the test that Adam failed. Because of His perfect righteousness because of His deity He can go to the cross and die as our substitute.

How do we get eternal life? “ … that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent’.” Notice that salvation is based on Jesus Christ alone, and it is based on knowledge; not experience but what God says in His Word.

John 17:4 NASB “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.” So Jesus glorifies—brings honour and respect to God the Father—by being obedient, i.e. by carrying out the plan of God by going to the cross and dying there for our salvation. At this point He is on the verge of doing that. He has glorified God in His life up to this point and He will complete the mission on the next day when he goes to the cross.

John 17:5 NASB “Now, Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” In the ancient church as they grappled with an understanding of Scripture the first question they grappled with was the question: What was Jesus before He came? Once they understood that the Scriptures taught Jesus is eternal God, that He was full deity, the next question they had to ask was: How did this manifest itself in time? What was Jesus when he came? What is the nature of the incarnation? How does the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ relate to one another? What happened to that glory during the time of the incarnation?

Philippians 2:5 NASB “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, [6] who, although He existed in the form of God …” That word “form” in the Greek is morphe [morfh]. It had a technical meaning in Greek philosophy. Plato used it to indicate the ultimate ideal. So what it comes to mean is the essence of a thing, not just its external shape. To the Greeks what made a thing what it was wasn’t its external shape but its internal essence. So morphe has to do with internal essence. “… did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped.” That is a contrast to Adam. Remember what happened in the garden? Adam was told not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then Satan taking on the form of a serpent comes to Eve and says the reason God said that is because He knew that if you did that you would become like God. She thought she would like to be like God so she grabbed the fruit. Then Adam comes along. Eve is deceived but Adam goes into it wilfully. What we find in Philippians is that Jesus, in contrast to Adam who grabbed for deity, has it but doesn’t grab for it. [7] “but emptied …” This is the controversial term, kinao [kinaw], from which we get the noun kenosis. What it means to empty Himself is not that He gave up deity. If He gave up deity or any divine attributes then He would be less than God. What it means is that Jesus under the authority of God the Father willingly restricted the independent use of divine attributes during the incarnation. He does display these within the framework of the plan for the incarnation. There are times that He displayed His deity but He does not utilise His attributes independent of God’s plan.  “ … Himself, taking the form [morfh] of a bond-servant, {and} being made in the likeness of men.” Jesus said He did not come to be served but to serve by giving His life as a ransom for many. He didn’t give up deity, He added humanity. The word “likeness” is the Greek homoioma [o(moiwma] which means the external likeness. He takes on humanity, it is likeness, but it is not identical because man is fallen. He takes on everything but a sin nature. [8] Being found in appearance …” This is the word schemati [sxhmati] which has to do with the external appearance/shape. “… as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. [9] For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, [10] so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, [11] and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” That is the point of the prayer, Jesus is glorifying the Father by carrying out the task of salvation.

In the early church they had a problem with trying to understand this. Having gone through a couple of centuries of debate over the exact relationship of Jesus they finally formulated the statement at the Council of Chalcedon. There they agreed: “We apprehend this one and only Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, in two natures [undiminished deity and true humanity], and we do this without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories [where there are two separate categories and there is no unity of person], without contrasting them according to area or function, the distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the properties of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one person in one essence…” (This is where we get the term “hypostatic union,” it is the union of the two essences in one person, the unity of undiminished deity in true humanity in one person) “They are not divided or cut into two persons but are together the one and only and only-begotten Logos of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified, thus the Lord Jesus Christ Himself taught us, thus the symbol of the Father has handed down to us [an allusion to God the Holy Spirit].”

When Jesus is talking to the Father in the prayer in John 17 he is talking about the fact that He has veiled His glory, His essence, except for a couple of occasions, because He has come to display God to the human race and to reveal God to man. That is why He prays, “glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.” So from all eternity Jesus Christ has been undiminished deity and from the moment of resurrection or ascension into heaven His full glory is manifest again.

In the first five verses Jesus is relating to the Father His own mission, His fulfilment and completion of that mission, and His future role at the right hand of God the Father. That role today at the right hand of God the Father is called the session of Jesus Christ. During His present session in heaven one of His primary tasks is intercession for the believer. He continuously prays for every single believer, and this is what we see in the next section of this high-priestly prayer. He begins a prayer of intercession for the disciples and the coming church that will develop from the day of Pentecost on.

John 17:6 NASB “I have manifested Your name to the men whom You gave Me out of the world …” This was His task. We can look at Scriptures such as John 1:18 where John tells us that no man has seen God at any time. Thus in the Old Testament all of those revelations from God such as when God appeared in the burning bush, when  Isaiah saw God on His throne, it was not God the Father who was seen but the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ. It is the role of the second person of the Trinity to reveal to the human race what God is like. How do we know what God is like? By learning about Jesus Christ and studying what the Scripture says about Him; that is the only way to know God. What does He means when He says, “I have manifested thy name”? We have seen in the Scriptures that this is an idiom. In Jewish culture a name was designed to reflect the essence of something. So when He says this it is a fulfilment of what John said in John 1:18: “the only-begotten of the Father has revealed Him [God].” He has revealed the essence of God to those whom God gave Him, and there it is a reference specifically to the disciples. “… they were Yours and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.” Here it is a clear reference to the fact that these eleven who are left have put their faith and trust in Christ and are saved; Judas was not.

John 17:7 NASB “Now they have come to know that everything You have given Me is from You.” This is the perfect active indicative of ginosko [ginwskw], they have come to know. There are two different Greeks words used for knowledge. One is oida [o)ida]. When there is a distinction between oida and ginosko, oida often refers to an intuitive knowledge. ginosko refers to a knowledge where you come to learn through study or instruction. The word ginosko is used here because Jesus has clearly taught the disciples about God and about Himself. [8] “for the words which You gave Me I have given to them; and they received {them} and truly understood that I came forth from You, and they believed that You sent Me.”

John 17, 7, 8 KJV “Now they have known that all things whatsoever thou hast given me are of thee. [8] For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest me; and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee, and they have believed that thou didst send me.” One of the things that must be done in translation is decide how to punctuate in English. The original Greek had no punctuation. Punctuation was done through syntax and was something that was inferred, not overt. The KJV shows v. 7 as an independent sentence and then begins v. 8 as a new sentence. The KJV translators had a tendency to try to make every versed an independent sentence, but what we find in the Greek is that verse 8 begins with a hoti [o(ti] clause. It is a causal participle usually translated because or for. Here we run into a problem, and that is that in the translation and understanding of a causal sentence here. Two different meanings are possible by how we punctuate a sentence. In the many times that hoti is used it is used less than ten times where it begins the clause. So when we come to a passage like John 17:7, 8 the causal statement, v.8, needs to go with v. 7. The period should really come after the “them” in v. 8. Jesus says” “Now they have come to know that everything thou hast given me is from thee because the words which thou gavest me I have given to them.” In other words, how is it that the disciples came to know Jesus? Because “the words that you gave me I have given to them.”

Jesus says that the way they came to know Him is because He taught them. He doesn’t use the word logos, which emphasises words, He uses rhema which indicates teaching, the spoken word, instruction. He is saying “they came to know me because I instructed them with the teaching that you gave me.” God communicates through words. If we are going to understand God then there is a technical vocabulary that God has given us for understanding Him. Many of these words are found in Scripture and some of them were coined by the writers of Scripture in order to more precisely communicate about God. So words are important. If we don’t understand them correctly then our application is going to be wrong. Another thing to emphasise is how Jesus taught the disciples. It was on a regular basis. He taught them day in and day out, it wasn’t just once a week. He built into them a total way of thinking. People need doctrine daily. We are kidding ourselves if we think we don’t need the truth and need to hear it day in and day out.

John 17:9 NASB “I ask on their behalf; I do not ask on behalf of the world [unbelievers], but of those whom You have given Me; for they are Yours.” Jesus is concerned for those who believe on Him and He is not concerned for those who don’t. Jesus’ concern for unbelievers is salvation, but that is not the focus of this prayer and that is why Jesus is not praying for unbelievers.

John 17:10 NASB “and all things that are Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine; and I have been glorified in them.” Jesus could not have used more precise language to say that he is one with the Father. He claims to be undiminished deity and true humanity, identical with God.

John 17:11 NASB “I am no longer in the world [in the sense of being on the earth]; and {yet} they themselves are in the world, and I come to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your name, {the name} which You have given Me, that they may be one even as We {are.}” Believers are still in the world, surrounded by the cosmic system and false teaching. Being “one” here is not a unity of essence but a unity of plan and purpose and role. His prayer is that we are kept, a reference to eternal security.

John 17:12 NASB “While I was with them, I was keeping them in Your name which You have given Me; and I guarded them and not one of them perished but the son of perdition, so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.” The term “son of perdition” relates to Judas. The Greek word there comes from the noun apollumi [a)pollumi] which is the same word that is used in John 3:16 for “perish.” So the term there for perdition is a term used for someone who does not have eternal salvation. 

Impassible

Impassible:                                   RD/Kings/031b

Among the Greek Fathers pathos or passion was the right word for the suffering of Christ, as it still is. So in theology to be impassible means primarily to be incapable of suffering. Early theology affirmed that in heaven our resurrected bodies will be apathes in this sense. The word came to be extended to mean incapable of emotion of any kind and beyond that, apathes (impassible) in important theological discourse meant without sexual desire (Gregory of Nyssa, The Great Catechism, chap. xxxv, “Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series,” edited by Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, 1910, ii, 5, pp. 502–504).

Impassibility.

The attribute of God’s being unaffected by anything outside of himself. Those who accept the view that God is impassible hold that he cannot be caused to do or feel anything, because of his omnipotence and perfection. Critics believe that impassibility would be a barrier to genuine loving relations between God and his creatures. See also divine attributes.

Impersonal Love

Imprsonal Love  RD/Gal/051

What are the characteristics of that impersonal love? It is expressed most clearly at salvation. Remember that man is hostile to God, he is at enmity to God, he rejects God, and he is continually taking advantage of every provision that God gives him.

1.       From eternity past God made a plan to solve the problem, so we see that His love is initiating. God’s love took charge of the situation to provide the perfect solution necessary to restore the relationship that was broken by Adam’s original sin.

2.       God’s impersonal love is aggressive. It asserts itself with confidence and boldness.

3.       There is humility. Jesus did not seek His own personal glory but He took on the attitude of a servant in order to do whatever was necessary. This included the incarnation, limiting His attributes in time—voluntarily restricting the independent use of His attributes while He was incarnate, sacrifice, and the undeserved imputation of human sin, and He received in His body on the cross the imputation of every single sin in human history.

  4. Intensity. God’s love is intense. This is defined as a zealous determination to achieve the goal of salvation despite all obstacles. God is omnipotent and is able to accomplish whatever is necessary to fulfil His perfect plan for the human race.    5. Steadfast loyalty. God is loyal to His promises to man and strongly desires all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Though not all will be saved He has made a perfect provision to save one and all—doctrine of unlimited atonement. Therefore God does not reject and condemn man at the moment of sin or at the moment of birth when he inherits Adam’s original sin and a sin nature, but God is patient and gives man a life long enough to make a decision for or against Him.    6. Consecration. This means to be set apart. Jesus Christ is solemnly set apart for the high purpose of being the exclusive means of salvation for the church. As such He is loyal to God the Father, motivated by personal love for God the Father, and therefore set apart to bring every believer to maturity.    7. Dedication. Jesus Christ is dedicated to the task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification.

Remember, man’s point of contact with God is not the love of God; it is the justice of God. God’s righteousness had to be satisfied before love could be a factor. Because of man’s loss of righteousness God had to deal with man on the basis of impersonal love, not personal love. That means the issue is who and what he is, not who and what man is. All of these characteristics that we have seen exemplify this impersonal love of God so that he could bring man into a relationship, solve the sin problem, and once again have personal love for man. God’s personal love for the believer is never based on who we are or what we do.

Remember, God established five divine institutions. Divine institutions were principles set up by God in the created order that apply to believer and unbeliever alike. They were given for the preservation, protection and perpetuation of the human race. The first is human responsibility—we are responsible for the decisions that we make. We are held accountable for those decisions. The second is marriage, and this is for believer and unbeliever alike. Third, is the family. The fourth is civil government, established in the covenant with Noah at the end of the flood. But there were not distinct nations at that time; that does not come about until after the tower of Babel at which time God establishes the principle of nations or national identity as opposed to internationalism.

Impersonal Love

Impersonal Love   RD/James/020

Definition of impersonal love Impersonal love puts the emphasis on the one loving. It is also called unconditional love because it doesn’t place any conditions on the person loved for them to be the object of our love. So it is therefore the consistent function of individual integrity and virtue towards friends, enemies, loved ones and strangers. Impersonal love always seeks the highest and best for the object of the love regardless of its impact on the one loving. That is hard for us to get a hold of because at the very root we are very selfish, self-centred, self-oriented people. Impersonal love is based upon the integrity of the lover. It is a non-emotional and unconditional regard for the entire human race that does not require intimacy, friendship, attractiveness, or even acquaintance with the specific object of love.

Importance of Missions

The Importance of Missions and Missionaries

RD/3 John 018

What is the biblical foundation for missions? There is a lot of confusion about what missions is and there are some technical aspects of the definition that those write on this subject deal with.

1.       The idea of sending authorised and trained people. They are people who are designated by a local church, recognised by a local church, to carry out a specific task related to evangelism and biblical training. They are people who are identified and recognised by a local church. They should not be people who simply jump up and do it on their own. The biblical model is that we see them set apart by a local church and sent forth. They may not be supported only but they have that local church grounding.

2.       They are trained. That training does not have to be formal seminary training but there needs to be some sort of training. People need to be trained and taught in skills related to teaching the gospel, skills related to working with people in cross-cultural circumstances. The main idea in missions per se is cross-cultural. It may not necessarily involve a cross-language situation. Another category that usually fits under missions is the support of seminary and Bible colleges for the training of people who can operate in these areas. It has been a standard way of approaching missions in many churches to classify missions in terms of foreign missions and home missions. Home missions would include a lot of kinds of cross-cultural evangelistic operations, but it could also include Christian camping and other things of that nature. But we can probably cover all this by saying it is crossing language and/or cultural division. The first point that had to do with training people takes up the importance of seminaries and Bible colleges and Bible institutes. Their purpose is to communicate the gospel and to teach the Word of God and the whole realm of Bible doctrine beyond the cultural border of the local home church. After there evangelism there has to be training and teaching converts the whole counsel, to then go on and train indigenous leaders and to establish a self-governing indigenous church—the ultimate goal. Establishing an indigenous church may even take a century or two.

3.       Technical definition: Missions technically refers to a form of cross-cultural evangelism with designated individuals who are set apart by a local church to carry out the work of communicating the gospel, teaching the Word of God and the whole realm of Bible doctrine, with the end result of creating a self-supporting indigenous ministry. Part of any such endeavour involves the training and preparation of those involved to actively handle and teach the Word of God. Thus the support of such training institutions is also a part of missions.

If we define missions as cross-cultural evangelism where we are sending the message of the grace of God into a hostile culture then our first example of that occurs in Genesis 3:15, right after the fall. The earth is now a hostile environment—“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.” This is the first indication of the gospel. The first seed is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, and notice that this is one of the very few places where the term “seed” is related to a woman. The seed is usually related to the male, not the female. Here it is the seed of the woman and it is specifically related to the virgin birth. So we see that God has a plan to penetrate the rebellious human viewpoint pagan culture of man from the beginning. The next example we see of God penetrating the world with the truth of the gospel is with Noah in Genesis 6:3ff. God gave 120 years of grace before judgment. Noah got involved in a 120-year evangelistic ministry. One of the great lessons to learn from Noah is the lesson of perseverance, because Noah did not have a single convert. God’s standard isn’t numbers, it is: Are you faithful to my Word and are you teaching the truth? 2 Peter 2:5 NASB “and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness…” He proclaimed righteousness and the way to righteousness through faith alone in Christ alone, promising a coming Saviour, and was completely rejected for that 120-year period of time.

Infralapsarian Order of the Elective Decrees

The infralapsarian order of the elective decrees is as follows:

1. God decree the creation of all mankind with free will in the state of perfection, in perfect environment, with only one test. Heb 2:10

Reason:       (1) to resolve the angelic conflict

                     (2) to bring many sons into Glory

                     PRINCIPLE: God cannot elect what does not exist. For God to elect anyone they must first of all be created.

2. The decree to permit the Fall.

PRINCIPLE: Condemnation must precede salvation. If man is in need of salvation then he is obviously in a fallen condition.

3. The decree to provide salvation for all mankind.

PRINCIPLE: The doctrine of unlimited atonement, the principle that Christ died for the sins of all mankind, not just a predetermined few.

4. The decree to elect those who believe in Christ and to leave in just condemnation all who do not believe.

PRINCIPLE: God provides all men free will to accept or reject His grace offer of salvation through faith alone in Christ alone.

NOTE: Rejection of Jesus Christ as Savior is a rejection of both the love of God and the grace of God. Those who do often call themselves Christians. They spend a lot to time overcoming their sins through good works and paying penance. God is not into penance. He is into forgiveness.

Jesus Christ did all the good works necessary for salvation on the cross. Therefore, our penance pays God nothing but insult! Our volition believes in the Lord’s substitutionary sacrifice. God forgives us our pre-salvation sins, saves our souls, and imputes us His righteousness. That’s it! That’s all! And that’s the truth!

5. The decree to apply salvation to those who believe in Christ.

PRINCIPLE: Each individual must first choose God’s plan of salvation after which, God decrees to elect that person to eternal life in His heaven.

THE SUPRALAPSARIAN ORDER OF THE ELECTIVE DECREES:

1. The decree to elect some to be saved and to reprobate all others.

2. The decree to create mankind both elect and reprobate.

3. The decree to permit the fall.

4. The decree to provide salvation for the elect

5. The decree to apply salvation to the elect.

POLEMICAL PRINCIPLES ON THE SUPRALAPSARIAN ORDER:

1. If Christ died only for the elect, then those who are reprobate cannot be sent to the Lake of Fire for failure to believe in Christ. 3. So even if the reprobate could believe in Christ it would have no positive effect because Christ is said to have died only for the sins of the elect.

2. Part of positive volition at Gospel hearing is to believe that Christ was our substitute on the cross and that while there he suffered spiritual death while being judged for our sins.

3. So even if the reprobate could believe in Christ it would have no positive effect because Christ is said to have died only for the sins of the elect.

4. The reprobate is therefore born without hope and condemned to the Lake of Fire with no real possibility to take advantage of God’s grace offer of salvation.

5. Consequently, the doctrine of limited atonement means the reprobate is born with an imperfect and tragically flawed soul in that it did not contain the provision of free will.

6. Supralapsarianism therefore promotes the false doctrine that the unbeliever is sent to the Lake of Fire because of his sins.

7. But the Bible clearly teaches that the unbeliever is sent to the Lake of Fire because of his failure to believe in Christ.

8. Further, Revelation 20:11-15 never mentions the unbeliever’s sins as a part of his indictment at the Great White Throne judgment.

Lapsarianism

Infralapsarianism (6)

1. God decreed the creation of all mankind, with freewill in a status of perfection.

Reason for creating mankind.

To resolve the Angelic Conflict.

To bring many son into glory .

2. God decreed to permit the fall of mankind, thru the function of mans own self-determination.

PRINCIPLE: Condemnation must precede salvation. If man is in need of salvation then he is obviously in a fallen condition.

3. God decreed to provide eternal salvation for all mankind under the doctrine of Unlimited Atonement.

2 Cor.5:14-15, 2Cor 5:19 1 Tim. 2:6 4:10 Titus 3:11 Heb. 2:9  2 Peter 2:1

4. God decreed to leave the reprobate (those who reject Jesus Christ as Savior) in their just condemnation. John 3:18 &

5. God decreed simultaneously in eternity past both Election and Predestination for believers only.

6. God decreed to apply Salvation to everyone who believes in Jesus Christ.

Inherit the Kingdom

What does inherit the kingdom mean?  RD/Gal/066

1.       It comes from the Greek word KLERONOMOS [klhronomoj] which means to inherit, to possess, to own. In English we all know that there is a difference between somebody who just enters into a house and lives in a house and somebody who owns and possesses the house. If that distinction is understood then so will the basic distinction Scripture makes between being an heir of the kingdom and being saved. Someone who is saved but not an heir will live in the kingdom but they will not own or possess the kingdom. So the issue: Is it something that is simply synonymous with entering into heaven and gaining eternal life, or does it refer to special blessings and rewards in heaven for believers who advance to spiritual maturity? The conclusion is that it is not salvation, entering into heaven or gaining eternal life. If that was true then works would be an issue.

2.       The problem with the view that it means entering into heaven is that several passages are contradictive. So inheriting the kingdom must refer to something else. It must refer to a category of believer in heaven. When we get to heaven there will be two categories of believers: heirs and non-heirs. But all will be in heaven.

3.       A second problem to be addressed is the meaning of the word “practice” – PRASSO [prassw]. It is a present active participle which means continual action, but when we talk about continual action that could cover any range of meanings. Does it mean to do something a few times? Does it mean to practice something after salvation for maybe ten, fifteen, or twenty years, and then the last years of life you don’t practice it? Does it refer to continuous action from the point of salvation all the way until you are taken home to be with the Lord? There are problems with each of those views. Where does it stop? How much is too much?

4.       It is important to realize that the entire phrase “inherit the kingdom of God” must be taken into account. There are three historic views for understanding this. The first is the Arminian view. The Arminians believed in a conditional election, which means that you could lose salvation because you had to keep up that condition or God would stop choosing you. So there is a conditional election, an unlimited atonement, and they taught that the ministry of God the Holy Spirit is resistable. The Calvinist position was a reaction to this: the five points of Calvinism under the acronym TULIP. The Arminians would interpret this passage on inheriting the kingdom of God as being able to lose one’s salvation—by continuing to practice the sins mentioned. In the hyper-Calvinist position they interpret this to mean that if you practice these things you weren’t really saved at all. There is a third position that is being developed today but has been around for a long time. It is being defined and developed in new ways. It is called the free grace position which makes a distinction between salvation and inheriting the kingdom. The issue here, then, is not our eternal destiny but our role in the eternal kingdom and reward.

5.       The problem is that these passages, like Galatians 3:29; 4:1; 1 Peter 1:4,5 speak of our inheritance as a permanent possession based on faith alone in Christ alone. In other passages such as Ephesians 5:5; Colossians 3:24 the inheritance is seen as a reward, something given for works. Salvation is not given for works, it is a grace gift. So there is a distinction made between gifts and rewards for works. How do we correlate these concepts?

6.       There are two categories of inheritance: inheriting the kingdom, which is being a joint heir with Christ because we have endured in the spiritual life, following His pattern; the category of being an heir of God, which is inheriting simply eternal life, an eternal destiny in heaven—Hebrews 1:14; Romans 8:17.

Luke 19:11-27, the parable of the minas. A parable is a fictitious story designed to communicate a doctrinal principle. The kingdom had been offered and rejected and Jesus wanted to make it clear that it had been postponed. A mina was approximately three months’ income. Verse 15: the slaves are not the citizens, they are not unbelievers here. The citizens represent the unbelievers who are living in the kingdom; the slaves are believers. His citizens hated him—the nationalistic response of unbelievers. They do not want God involved in their world and they are shaking their fist at Him. The calling of the slaves is comparable to the judgment seat of Christ; the evaluation of the servants. The mina represents all the spiritual assets and physical assets that God has given the believer. There is going to be accountability for how these are used. This accountability is not related to getting into heaven, it is related to the believer’s position in the kingdom. Verse 16 – because the slave used his gift and developed capacity and shown responsibility he is rewarded with a rule over ten cities in the kingdom. Verse 18 – he didn’t work so hard; there is no praise. His reward was five cities, a fivefold return. Verse 20—the mina was hidden. Verse 22—“By your own words I will judge you, you worthless slave.” The Greek word translated “worthless” is very interesting; it means evil. This is the believer who does not utilize the assets that God gives him. Verse 26—“I tell you, that to everyone who has shall more be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.” Loss at the judgment seat of Christ. Are we living today in the light of eternity and what is going to happen at the judgment seat of Christ? 

  There are going to be Church Age believers who fail to live the Christian life. They continue to live in carnality, they never utilize 1 John 1:9, they never advance in the spiritual life, the continue to operate under the sin nature, and when the Lord comes back at the judgment seat of Christ they will lose rewards and will be in the kingdom but not heirs of the kingdom. God’s plan for the believer is to be an heir of the kingdom, a joint heir with Jesus Christ.

Inheritance

Inheritance  RD/Heb/147b

The word for inheritance – the noun is kleronomos.  It has the idea of one who inherits or an heir.  But in our society an heir is - receives the property when somebody dies.  But in the Old Testament background to this, somebody could be an heir of something and have a current possession.  So the core meaning of inheritance is not the idea of somebody dying and having property transferred.  But the core meaning is possession or property – having something as your possession.  That’s the verb.  Kleronomos is the noun.  This is the related verb, kleronomeo meaning to possess or receive something as one’s possession.  Now these two words are used in several different ways.

   1. They are used to refer to a birthright which someone gains by virtue of their sonship – by virtue of their relationship to the Father.  So that is the way we’re most used to thinking about an inheritance, as a birthright.  Galatians 4:30 and Hebrews 1:4.

   2. It’s also used to describe property that is received as a gift in contrast to a reward.  So you may receive property because you’ve done something.  But it’s used in Hebrews 1:14 and Hebrews 6:12 as property that is received as a gift, as a grace gift like salvation.   

     3. It’s used also to refer to property that’s received on the condition of obedience to certain conditions.  In other words, the point I’m making is that we have an inheritance that’s related to property that’s given; and we have inheritance used in relation to things that are ours based on some condition - the condition of obedience, perseverance, growing spiritually.  So it’s used in two different ways.  Now that causes a lot of confusion for people because they think that it means one of two things.  We either lose our salvation or people who don’t get this inheritance weren’t really saved to begin with.  One view losing salvation that’s the view associated with Arminianism and the idea that you weren’t really saved to begin with because you can’t fulfill these condition couldn’t fulfill the conditions.  That’s related to the hyper-perseverance of Lordship salvation.

   4. Then the fourth way in which these words are used in relation to a reward based on meeting certain conditions and following certain activities.

So when we see this in Hebrews, it’s primarily used in terms of that future reward for continued service to God.  As we see in our passage, that service to God can’t begin until first of all we are cleansed and trust Christ as our Savior and are saved.  Then it’s all based on the fact that Christ is the heir of all things and we are in Him.  So we have a certain measure of inheritance.  Every believer has certain areas because of our position in Christ.  So that when the resurrection occurs, the rapture comes, when you have all believers resurrected and are in heaven, we’re all going to have resurrection bodies – that have basically the same properties.  We’re not going to have any sorrow, tears, pain. All those things are going to pass away.  We’re all going to be happy.  Nobody’s going to have a sin nature.  There are going to be many other aspects that every believer has in common.  But there are going to be other aspects, privileges that we have that are based on our capacity and based on our spiritual growth.  So these are the two dimensions.

Inspiration, Illumination and Leading of the Holy Spirit

Inspiration, Illumination and Leading of the Holy Spirit

RD/Heb.  047b

1 Inspiration: the process whereby God oversaw the process of inscripturating or recording the disclosure of Scripture.  Inspiration is the mechanics of how the thoughts of God were put into the minds of men and written down so that the Holy Spirit oversaw the process so that the end result was without error.  It is neither a mechanical view nor a mystical view of inspiration.  Louis Sperry Chafer completely rejected the mystical view of inspiration.

2  Illumination:  the process whereby the God the Holy Spirit enables us to understand what has been written in Scripture.  We know that He does.  The Scripture doesn’t tell us what those mechanics are.  It is not contemplating your navel.  The worst form of mysticism in the Christian life is taking the Bible and saying, “Okay.  I am going to read the passage and I am going to pray and God is going to tell me what it means.”  It is totally devoid of any knowledge of Greek or Hebrew or exegesis or theology.  It is just liver quiver exposition.  It is whatever God tells me at that moment that it means.  The Holy Spirit works through processes - study, years in seminary, learning the original languages, studying theology.  That is how we come to understand the truth.

3 Leading of the Holy Spirit:  This can be directly through Scripture or indirectly illumination as we understand Scripture, bringing Scripture to memory when we get into a particular situation, wisdom application.  The Holy Spirit builds this reservoir of knowledge in our soul.  We learn to apply it.  The Scripture uses the word wisdom which means skill at living.  He leads us through that wisdom which leads our soul.  This is confirmed often through external counsel or circumstances, but you never see the pure mystical liver quiver that “God spoke to me” kind of thing that you often get in holiness circles.  You spend hours in prayer and God will speak to us.  The problem is how you know it is God and not something that is dredging up in your own mind.  How many of you have had the experience when you pray that you start to pray and all of a sudden you are in the grocery store or you are out on the golf course or you are watching a football game or you are wrestling with a business problem.  Two or three minutes go by and you say, “Oh yeah.  I am supposed to be praying.”  We have all these different layers of stuff going on in our consciousness that tends to percolate up.  Now how do you that what is percolating up is from the Holy Spirit or your own mentality?  That is the issue.  How do you verify it?  How do you validate it?  How do you say it is true or false?  In mysticism there is no validation anymore. 

Interpretation, Three Important Principles on

Three important principles that relate to any kind of interpretation.   RD/Heb. 103b

   1. First of all meaning is determined by the author, not the reader or the listener.  So that means that the meaning of what Rush said is not determined by who listens to it, it is determined by his intent.  It’s called authorial intent. 

   2. Second thing we have to remember is that anything must be understood in light of the times in which it was written or spoken.  That means context.

So you have to recognize that there are three levels of context that anything has.  It’s the immediate context, the surrounding paragraphs, statements, explanations.  That’s part of the literary or oral context.

The second level of context would be the broader context of the writer or the speaker.  Any of us could say things publicly where we misspeak.  I have misspoken at times where I have said one thing and I meant just the opposite. That can happen to anybody who is on radio, television who is speaking frequently.

So you have to look and say, “Did he really mean that?”

Well, look at the whole body of evidence and say, “Well, that would contradict everything that person has ever said so obviously they misspoke.”

So you have the broader context of the writer or speaker or maybe the writer (like we find in Scripture a lot of times) says something that conceivably could go this way or that way and you have to interpret it in light of the broader context and say, “Well he couldn’t have meant X because if he meant X it would go against everything else he said.  So obviously he must have meant Y.”

   3. Then you have a culture or historical context.

Interpreting Old Testament Passages

Jews had four different way of interpreting Old Testament passages.   RD/Heb. 114b

(1)literal prophecy and applied it literally.    NKJ Micah 5:2 " But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting."

Jesus would be born in Bethlehem.

Or they took a (2)  literal historical event out of Egypt – I called My children – referring to the Exodus.  That was applied typologically to Jesus coming out of Egypt after they had escaped from Herod.

The third view was the view called (3) literal historical event.  There may be one point of similarity that is connected to an event.  In Matthew 2 there is a quote from Jeremiah dealing with the women, the mothers of Judah weeping over their children.  So this applied simply to the weeping of the mothers of Judah over the loss, the death of their children in Matthew 2.  That’s the same kind of thing that you have in Acts 2.

Now this may seem a little abstruse and like a minor point for some of you.  I’ll connect these dots, but it is very important to understand how the writers of the New Testament use the Old Testament.  When you get a passage such as the passage related to Jesus in Hosea 11:1:

NKJ Hosea 11:1 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.

When you exegete it in context (I think that’s Hosea 11:1) you would never ever think from the context of Hosea 11 that it applies it to the Messiah.  But, Matthew comes along and applies it (And that is the correct word to use.) typologically to the Messiah.  There was a term that was used by the rabbis for this type of interpretation.  I don’t remember what it is off the top of my head right now, but that’s in contrast to another form of interpretation that was used in the first century called pesher interpretation.  And, pesher is spelled p-e-s-h-e-r.   If you want a fairly succinct understanding of what pesher interpretation is just google it.   Look it up on wikipedia and the article in wikipedia is pretty accurate.  In pesher interpretation, this became popular in the intertestamental period in rabbinical literature.   They allegorized or spiritualized prophecy.  Now there is a difference between applying a passage typologically to an event and spiritualizing or allegorizing it.  One of the differences is that applying it typologically you’re not denying the original historical, grammatical, exegetical meaning of the passage. 

But in spiritual or allegorizing you say, “Well that’s the literal, historical, grammatical meaning is not important spiritually.  What’s important is the spiritualized or allegorized sense.”

It may have nothing whatsoever to do with the literal historical grammatical sense of the passage.  I guess the best term is rabbinical imagination.

Interval after the Tribulation

The 8 events of the 75-day interval  RD/Rev/226b

1.       The cleansing of the abomination of desolation from the temple.

2.      The Antichrist will be resurrected to be sentenced with the false prophet to the lake of fire.

3.      The false prophet and the Antichrist are then sent to the lake of fire.   

4.      Satan is caught and bound and cast into the abyss where he stays for 1000 years.

5.      The judgment of the Gentile nations that are still living. This involves the separation of the sheep from the goats.

6.      The resurrection of the Old Testament saints.

7.      The resurrection of the Tribulation martyrs.

8.      The marriage supper of the Lamb.

Islam

Islam: Not a Peaceful Religion; 1 John 2:18 RD/1 John/047

1 John 2:18 NASB “Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have appeared; from this we know that it is the last hour.”

This term “antichrist” is derived from a Greek word with the preposition anti [a)nti], which in English as the idea of opposition or against, but in the Greek anti means substitution or instead of. So this is a substitute Christ, a religious leader. We must understand that there are many different figures in history that may be termed an antichrist. That is because Jesus Christ’s coming is imminent. Because Satan does not know when that will be he always has to be ready. So throughout the church age there are certain trends: trends of false religion, religious leaders that arise and create new religious systems that Satan can use for his benefit in order that it maybe be used to bring in the final ecumenical religion that will be during the Tribulation. One particular “antichrist” who appeared in history, and his religious system, is Islam.

What is happening today in light of the terrorist attacks on September 11 is that we are being bombarded and brainwashed by an illiterate media—and an ignorant media—trying to convince us that Islam is really a peaceful religion. Children are being indoctrinated in this false claim in public schools. It is not a religion of peace and it never has been a religion of peace. We will look at Islam as one expression of a religious system that is an example of antichrists in the church age.

Islam was founded by a prophet. He did not claim to be God or claim deity for himself, he claimed simply to be a prophet but the greatest of all prophets and his name was Muhammad. He was born in 570 AD in Mecca. His parents died when he was a child and he was raised by an uncle who was a merchant and took him on various caravan trips throughout the Middle east, and he had contacts with many different people. He had contacts with Jews and with Christians and was somewhat discouraged by the fact that on the Arabian peninsula the Arabs were nothing more than nomadic tribes who practiced polytheism. They had 360 gods, one for each day of the year, and the deities they worshipped included angels and demons, and the highest and most powerful of all the gods in the Arabian pantheon was a god by the name of Allah. He was a moon god and as the god of the moon he was also a god of war. So what Muhammad decided was to get rid of all of the polytheism, get rid of 359 gods and have one left, and that would be Allah. Allah was the moon god represented by a crescent moon which is why the Islamic nations have on their flag a crescent moon signifying the worship of Allah and his roots as the moon god.

When Muhammad was a young man he married his boss. He was a camel driver and she had a “trucking” company and he married her in order to get ahead in life. Because she was fairly wealthy it left him with a lot of time on his hands, and being a somewhat introspective ascetic, he liked to go up and meditate on “spiritual” things up in the mountains. When he was 40 years of age he started having these strange convulsions. He started foaming at the mouth and going into trances, and he was convinced that he was demon possessed, that he had a djin, the Arabic from which we get our English word genie—an evil spirit. But his wife said no, it was just the angel Gabriel who was wanting to communicate with him. So he goes up into a cave in the mountains and the angel Gabriel allegedly appeared to this illiterate camel herder, outside of Mecca, and they had a little fight. Gabriel strangled him and choked him into submission, demanding that he “proclaim in the name of the Lord, the creator, who created man from a clot of blood.” So he was to proclaim this new revelation that came allegedly from God, and the fact that Gabriel allegedly choked him into submission is key for understanding Islam because the word Islam does not mean peace, it means submission. The role of Islam and their mission is to cause everybody on the planet to come into submission to Allah, and it doesn’t matter if it is done by free will or whether by force through violence. That becomes clear from reading the Koran. Just as Muhammad was forced into submission through violence, that is the way that Islam has often spread in history.

He had various visions with the angel Gabriel and over a 22-year period he was given 78,000 words of the Koran’s 114 chapters. He never wrote anything down because he was as illiterate as his followers. He began to force his new religion on people. He went to the Jews and they rejected it, he went to the Christians and they rejected it, and so he became made at both the Jews and the Christians so now he was going to have a religious system that was antagonistic to both groups. He went to the Arabs and tried to force it on them and they rejected it so he had to flee Mecca for his life. He went out into the desert and gathered various Bedouin riff-raff around him. He needed to raise funds in order to support this new army, so he did so by raiding various caravans, and he came up with the idea that this ought to be justified by some kind of religious argumentation. So he developed a doctrine called jihad, which means struggle or exertion. Jihad therefore authorised military ventures known as extortion and robbery in Allah’s name. In 628 AD he returned to Mecca with a force of 10,000 men and gained control over the city in a bloodless coup, and the result was that all of Arabia was his.

Islam looks at Muhammad as a prophet, the greatest of all the prophets; but Islam does not recognise Jesus as a Son of God, they recognise Jesus only as a prophet. Christians are told by Muslims that faith in Christ as God incarnate is blasphemy. According to Islam all Jews by virtue of their birth are damned by God. Islam rejects the idea of a virgin birth of Jesus as the Son of God. They reject the miracles He performed and His death on the cross—Jesus didn’t die on the cross, He was taken into heaven before the cross and somebody else was crucified. So the Bible in their view is corrupted, as has been corrupted, especially by Israel. They hate all Jews. There is this deep hatred and anti-Semitism among all Muslims that is palpable, incredible.

The five pillars of Islam are:

a) They recite the Shahada – “There is no god but Allah and Muhammud is his messenger” – five times a day, whenever they pray towards Mecca;

b) They pray five time a day towards Mecca – morning, noon, late afternoon, sunset, and before bed time. They must pray kneeling with their foreheads pressed firmly against the ground;

c) They believe in alms-giving, are required to voluntarily give to aid the poor and to purify one’s self from materialism. They are required to donate one fortieth of their income and possessions;

d) Fasting during the month of Ramadan;

e) the Haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca. The only sure way to get into heaven is to either die on your Haj or you will die in the midst of jihad. Other than that you don’t know if you’ll ever get into heaven or into Paradise. Many believe that the sixth pillar is jihad.

What are some of the beliefs of Muslims? First of all, as we have seen already, Islam does not mean peace but submission. A Muslim is one who submits. The goal of Islam is to get all mankind to submit, even if by force, to Allah. There is no such thing as salvation in Islam as there is in Christianity. In Christianity there is the belief that all men are sinners. There is no comparable doctrine of total depravity is Islam; there is no comparable doctrine of salvation. And there is no certainty and no idea of how one ever gets to heaven, except to die on a Haj or in jihad. Islam is completely intolerant of all other religious beliefs. If any Muslim converts to Christianity his father is required to kill him. If the father will not kill him then the village is required to kill both the father and the son. Islam is also against progress and it represses women. According to Islam there are only two people on the planet. There are those who are members of the house of peace, the dar es salaam, and those who are members of the house of war. Those who are members of the house of peace are to destroy those who are in the house of war. Finally, one of the sayings that they say frequently, “Allah is great,” does not literally mean God is great, it means God or Allah is greater. Greater than what? We are reminded that it was Satan who said that he was greater than God. We are also reminded that in Deuteronomy 32 and 1 Corinthians 10 we are told that behind all idols and false gods there are demons. So if we put two and two together we come up with the conclusion that Allah is a creation of or a manifestation of Lucifer, especially when we couple that with the extreme anti-Semitism of Islam.

According to Islamic prophecy, when Jesus come back He will come back as a Muslim and then He and Muhammad will gather all the Muslims to themselves and they will go out and kill every Christian and every Jew; so much so that the rocks and the trees will cry out, “There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.” The god that they worship, Allah, is not the God of the Bible, and the Jesus they talk about is not the Jesus of the Bible. Their Jesus is an Islamic Jesus who is a destructive warrior who hates all Jews.

Islam was built on the foundation of Arabian paganism, and apparently Muhammad had a trend in his sin nature towards asceticism and legalism and was embarrassed by the Arabs and their multiplicity of gods; especially when he had contact with Jews and Christians. He was more impressed with their piety and their morality and so he tried to force this on the Arabs. He did this by getting rid of all of their gods except for Allah. If we look at the attributes of Allah in the Koran they are not the attributes of the God of the Bible. For example, the word love is only used two times in the Koran. In the Bible the core commandment in the Old Testament is that we are to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and love our neighbour as ourselves. In the New Testament we learn that God is love. There are no comparable statements to those in the Koran.

Islam was originally planted by the sword and spread by the sword during the time of Muhammad. In fact he killed and murdered tens of thousands of Arabs and Syrians in order to spread Islam during the 8th and 9th centuries. He tortured his captives with fire. He would kill them, take their wives and his bondmaids and forced others to marry his companions. Anyone who criticised him was instantly murdered and following his death all of the caliphs were to be blood relatives of Muhammad. So his followers fought a bloody war of succession and his own relatives and closest friends sacrificed and slaughtered one another. So it is not a religion of peace.

The differences between Jesus and Muhammad

a)      Jesus’ birth as the Messiah was prophesied in Scripture. Muhammad’s birth was not. For example, we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He would be born into the tribe of Judah and the house of David, 2 Samuel 7:12-16; born of a virgin, Isaiah 7:14, and to be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2. There is no Scripture to appeal to about the birth of Muhammad.

b)      Jesus was foretold to be the Son of God and He claimed to be the Son of God, and the apostles also proclaimed Him as the Son of God. However, Muhammad and Islam reject this: God cannot have a son. He thought it was blasphemy to say that God has a son, so all Christians by definition are blasphemers and in the Koran they are to kill all blasphemers. That is why one of their sayings is to kill the Jews on Saturday and to kill the Christians on Sunday.

c)      Muhammad did not authenticate his claims with any works or miracles. He claimed that the Koran was the only sign needed to authenticate himself as a prophet.

d)      Jesus and the Old Testament prophets emphasise love. Over and over again in the Bible there is an emphasis on love—love for God, love for mankind, God’s love for mankind. But this is not true in the Koran. In fact, the Koran emphasises vengeance and vindictiveness and violence as opposed to love and forgiveness. In his book A Cup of Trembling, Dave Hunt writes: “Islam is fighting a holy war for control of the world. That war was begun by Muhammad himself in the 7th century and is still carried on today by his faithful followers through terrorism. The terrorists are not radicals or extremists as the media continually labels them. Instead, they are Islamic fundamentalists…” What is a fundamentalist? A fundamentalist is someone who believes in the fundamentals of whatever his system is. There is nothing extremist about it. Yet what has happened is that our modern liberal media is using the term fundamentalist as an insulting, negative term that is synonymous with extremism. That is a falsehood. The term Christian fundamentalist came into use because of a series of books published in the early 20th century called The Five Fundamentals of the Faith. The term Christian fundamentalist came into use to describe the people who believed in the five fundamentals of the faith; not extremists or crusaders. “… Instead, these are Islamic fundamentalists who are true to their religion and the teachings of the Koran, and who follow foully in the footsteps of their great prophet Muhammad. As one former Muslim and Islamic scholar has said: ‘We must never imagine that such Muslims are being unnecessarily wicked, they are simply being faithful to their religion. The fact is never hidden as to the attitude a good Muslim  should have towards Christians and Jews. In fact much of the incitement to violence and war in the whole of the Koran is directed against the Jews and Christians who rejected what they felt to be the strange God Muhammad was trying to preach.… Muhammad and his successors initiated offensive wars against peaceful countries in order to impose and implant by force as well as to seize the abundance of these lands. Their objective was to capture women and children and to put an end to the poverty and hunger from which Arab Muslims suffered. So Islam was forcibly imposed upon Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran, all of North Africa, some parts of India and China, and later Spain.” In fact western Europe fought the Muslims from the eight century up to the fifteenth century and it was only when Columbus and others came to the Americas and took back all of the gold from Mexico, South and North America that western Europe had the financial resources to finally defeat the Muslims. But what happened by the late 19th century and the use of oil is that the petro-dollars come along and now the Arabs are filthy rich and have the financial resources to go back on the warpath and to try to take over the world. Violence is clearly mentioned in numerous places in the Koran.

Israel as a type of Christian Life

Israel often as a type for the Christian life     RD/Heb. 035b 

   1. The Exodus The death of Christ is described in Luke 9:31 as an exodus.  It uses the Greek word exodus.  That is where we get it. It is a transliteration of the Greek word to depart, to go somewhere.

NKJ Luke 9:31 who appeared in glory and spoke of His decease which He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.

He spoke of His departure, His exodus which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem.  That would refer to His work on the cross, resurrection and ascension.  The concept of the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt is a picture of Christ’s exodus from the earth.

   2. The Passover  A second use of Exodus event  is a type of something that comes later in the life of Christ is that Christ is our Passover.  He is the true Passover Lamb that was sacrificed as a substitute for our salvation.  The Passover lamb is a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ as our Passover Lamb.

NKJ 1 Corinthians 5:7 Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.

It is a confession of our sin and sanctification. So you have to understand the dynamics of the Passover in Exodus to understand how Christ is our Passover.  Specifically this is with a reference to His work as the sacrificial lamb, the Passover Lamb.

   3. The Lamb as a type of Christ.   Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.  John 1:29  This statement was made by John the Baptist. When John the Baptist saw Jesus walk down to the Jordan River he looked at Him and said, “The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”  All of the Jews who were there understood exactly what He meant.  There was no question in their minds that he was taking the Passover lamb imagery and applying it specifically to this man who was walking down.  The rabbis had taught that it was a passage, a symbol, an imagery of the Messiah.  So when John the Baptist said this it was a profound statement.  That crowd was falling allover themselves looking to see who he was talking about.  The same imagery was picked up by Peter.

NKJ 1 Peter 1:18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,

NKJ 1 Peter 1:19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

He is specifically connecting the work of Christ on the cross to the image, the type, the shadow image, the picture that was provided all those years as the Jews celebrated the Passover. 

   4. The wilderness.  Following the Exodus from Egypt, Israel entered into the wilderness.  Israel’s experienced hostility of the wilderness where they were totally dependent on God for their survival in the midst of all kinds of military opposition, environmental hostility.  They were dependent upon God.  In the same way the Church Age believers are living in a hostile environment.  We are living in a warfare situation.  We are no different from the special ops guys over in Iraq who are out there running around behind enemy lines disguised, living in the culture, living off the land, surrounded by potential enemies.    We are in the same way.  We are in a hostile environment.  We need that support base that comes from the encouragement of other believers.  That is why the writer of Hebrews says that we are to encourage one another as long as it is called today.  We are living in that same hostile environment.  So the nation Israel as they go through the wilderness experience is a picture of the church and Church Age believers living in a hostile environment.  This idea is picked up by Stephen in his final parting message before he was stoned by the Sanhedrin in Acts 7:37-38.

NKJ Acts 7:37 " This is that Moses who said to the children of Israel, 'The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear.'

NKJ Acts 7:38 "This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us,

This is he who was in the congregation or assembly in the wilderness, talking about how Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate state was there continually present with the assembly of Jews (not the church) in the wilderness.  He was the angel who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai. It was the Lord Jesus Christ in His pre-incarnate state who was there to sustain them in the midst of all their adversities and all of their trials in the Old Testament.  In the same way the Lord Jesus Christ as our high priest is continuously praying for us and interceding for us. He has provided the Word of God for us and all the principles in the Word of God for us as well as His precedent setting application of the Word during the incarnation as the resource for us to handle any adversity as we live in the midst of the world or the cosmic system.  He prays for us as He prayed in John 17 which is Jesus’ high priestly prayer.

NKJ John 17:15 "I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one.

We are not to go off and live on a mountain top somewhere in a monastery separated from whatever is going on in the world, but we are to be in the cosmic system but living for Christ as ambassadors.

   5. The baptism of the Israel into Moses is a picture of the identification of the believer with Jesus Christ.  There are 8 baptisms in the Bible.  Three of them are wet baptisms or ritual baptisms.  There is the baptism of John the Baptist, the baptism of Jesus, and the believer’s baptism.  Those were all wet.  Then there are 5 dry or real baptisms.  There is the baptism of the cross, the baptism of fire, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of Moses, and then there is the baptism with Noah.  Those were all dry baptisms.  In the baptism of Moses and the baptism of Noah in II Peter 3 - those are dry baptisms.  The people who got wet died.  So you have to distinguish which baptism is being talked about and the significance and meaning of the word. Baptism itself, the Greek word baptizo, means to plunge, to immerse, or to dip.  But it is not limited to its literal meaning.  It was the act of plunging or dipping something into something was to signify something.  It had to do with identification and initiation.  Whatever was dipped or immersed into something else was identified with it.  It is also indicated that it was entering into a new state or new circumstances.  It was an initiatory rite.  For example when the Greek Hoplite soldier got out of boot camp at his graduation exercise, he would take his sword and dip it or baptize it in a bucket of pig’s blood.  This did two things.  It identified the weapon with blood and violence.  From now on he was going to be a warrior.  It was an initiation that he was ready to do this. He had completed his training.  He was now ready to go into battle.  So baptism always had this picture of identification with something and initiation into a new state.  In I Corinthians 10:1-2 we have the baptism with Moses.

NKJ 1 Corinthians 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea, 2 all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,

Under the cloud meant that they were being led by the Shekinah glory that appeared as a pillar of cloud in the day and a pillar of fire at night.  Passing through the sea is a reference to passing through the Red Sea on dry ground after which the soldiers and chariots of Pharaoh were drown and wiped out.

All of the Jews who passed through the sea following the leadership of the Shekinah glory were baptized or identified with Moses.  By passing through the Red Sea they were following Him and trusting Moses, identifying with his faith.  This is the initiation right of the nation.  When they crossed through the Red Sea they have passed through the waters there in a new state.  They have identified themselves with Moses indicated by the Greek preposition eis.  That identification with Moses was by means of the cloud.  The Shekinah glory led them.

“And by means of the sea.”  Of course they didn’t get wet.  They are now identified with Moses in terms of his faith.  So the Exodus generation provides a picture for us of baptism by means of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament because we are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection.  That initiates us into new life.  This is seen in Romans 6:3-4.  Paul writes.

NKJ Romans 6:3 Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? 4 Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

That is the same prep eis that is used in I Corinthians 10:2 .  We are identified with Christ Jesus and were baptized into His death.  At the instant that you trust Christ as your Savior you are identified with Christ in His death.  According to verse 4 we are buried with Him through baptism.  Even so we should walk in newness of life.  There is an initiation into a new life because we have been identified with Christ’s death, burial, and resurrection.  So the Jewish baptism with Moses is a picture, type or shadow image of what happens to every believer in the Church Age.  We are identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection so that we have a new life – a new potential.  The Jews came out of Egypt and they had a new potential.  That potential was related to experiencing the blessing of God living in the land of milk and honey, the Promised Land that God was going to lead them to.  That was a potential.  The potential was contingent upon their trusting God.  What happened?  Again and again and again and again they don’t trust Him.  Finally it reaches a crisis point at Kadesh Barnea where it’s the last straw.  God says, “Okay.  That’s it.  They will not enter My rest.”  They jeopardized their temporal continent rewards and they were taken away.  The same thing can happen to us.  That is why the writer of Hebrews is saying this.  Our fifth point was that the baptism of Israel into Moses is a picture of the identification of the believer with the Lord Jesus Christ.

   6. Our “eating” and “drinking” of Christ is pictured by their eating manna and drinking water from the spiritual rock that was Christ.  What in the world am I talking about here?  You have to be a little cognizant of what is going on in the Scripture.  First of all let’s look at the I Corinthians 10:3 passage again.  What I am saying is that we are to eat Christ’s flesh and drink Christ’s blood. That is what he says in John 6.  That was pictured by the Jews eating manna in the wilderness and drinking the water that came out of the rock.  That is indicated several times in the Scripture.

NKJ 1 Corinthians 10:3 all ate the same spiritual food,

They all ate manna.  Manna is from the Hebrew word that means “what it is.”  They looked at it and said, “What is it? We’ve never seen anything like that.”    That is what they called it – what is it?  Every morning they got up and went outside and collected the “what is it?” to have for breakfast.  They all ate the same spiritual food and they drank the same spiritual drink.  The physical water that came out of the rock had a spiritual significance just as the manna was a picture of something spiritual.  God provides our ongoing day to day nourishment and sustenance in the spiritual life.  That is explained in the fourth verse.

NKJ 1 Corinthians 10:4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.

That’s the Lord Jesus Christ.  He was there.  He is the one who was always in their midst.  He was the spiritual rock that followed them.  So Paul shows that these events that happened to the Exodus generation picture these dynamic principles in the Church Age. This is what Jesus refers to when He stands out there in front of this Jewish crowd and says, “I am the living bread.”  They are thinking biblically.  They knew their Old Testament.  They knew what He was claiming.   John 6:51 He was claiming to be that which was pictured by the spiritual food that the Exodus generation complained about.

He is not talking about physically eating Him.  This is the problem that the Roman Catholic theologians got into in the early Middle Ages due to the influence of Aristotelian philosophy as their reference.  Instead of treating this as a figure of speech, as an idiom, they took it literally.  Jesus used all kinds of idioms.  He said He was the door, but you didn’t find a door handle and hinges on Him.

He said He was the bread and anyone who ate of it would live forever.  What He meant by that is that anybody can eat or drink.  It is a non-meritorious action that any individual person can do.  When you eat or drink something you are receiving it or accepting it.  You are taking it into yourself.  You are making it part of you.  That which you eat and that which you drink provide nourishment and sustenance and strength for you.  So the picture of eating bread is a picture of eating Christ – that is accepting Him by faith and trusting Him for salvation.

NKJ John 6:51 "I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world."

That is what happened at the cross when He paid the penalty for sins on the cross.  But the Jews didn’t understand this.

NKJ John 6:52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, "How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?"

Israel, The Future Restoration of

 The Future Restoration of Israel.   RD/Heb. 116b

There will be two massive regatherings of Israel in history – in the future – from the time of the prophets.

Hold your place here and turn with me for just a minute to Isaiah 11 to remind you of an important passage.  Isaiah 11 is also talking about this future return of a people Israel, of a regenerate people to the land.  Isaiah 11:11

NKJ Isaiah 11:11 It shall come to pass in that day That the LORD shall set His hand again the second time To recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush, From Elam and Shinar, From Hamath and the islands of the sea.

What’s that day?  Well, according to the context it’s “that day” when the root of Jesse - that is Jesse was the father of David that is when the seed of David the one who fulfills the Davidic Covenant the Lord Jesus Christ.  The greater Son of David takes the throne and establishes His kingdom in Israel.

Verse 10 says:

NKJ Isaiah 11:10 " And in that day there shall be a Root of Jesse, Who shall stand as a banner to the people; For the Gentiles shall seek Him, And His resting place shall be glorious."

So this puts our focus on the return of Christ, the time when He establishes the Davidic kingdom - Millennial Kingdom - Messianic Kingdom.   All these terms can be used.

Verse 11 says;

NKJ Isaiah 11:11 It shall come to pass in that day

So we know from the context that “that day” refers to the time of that recovery, that restoration of the nation as a regenerate, as a saved people because all would be saved if they’re going to the Millennial Kingdom.

That the LORD shall set His hand again the second time

That’s the phrase you need to underline.  That’s a phrase you need to highlight.

To recover the remnant of His people who are left, From Assyria and Egypt, From Pathros and Cush,

Cush is Libya.  Pathros is located (I am not sure where Pathros is), I think it’s located in modern Turkey area.

From Elam and Shinar,

Elam is down in the Persian Gulf area and Shinar which is Babylon.

From Hamath and the islands of the sea.

Hamath and the islands of the sea refer to all the islands out in the Mediterranean and the Aegean.  It was basically a term for all the land that’s west which would include Europe.

Now He’s going to recover the remnant a second time.  The question has to be - when did He recover Jews from all of these places the first time?  Well, you only have a couple of options.  The option most people want to go to is 536 when Cyrus signed a decree that Zerubbabel could take a group of Jews from Babylon back to the land and begin to reestablish themselves in their own land.  The problem is in 536 you only had about 4 or 5 thousand Jews return with Zerubbabel and they only came back from Babylon.

Now what had happened in 722 was that the ten northern tribes, most of them were deported by the Assyrians and scattered from Turkey through all of the modern “stan” countries – Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan all the way across those northern countries that are part of the old soviet block to Persian, to India.  Then they migrated even further.  So you had this massive deportation of Northern Kingdom Jews and then at the time of the Babylonian invasion you had a number of Jews leave and go down to Egypt and you had some that went up into the area around Turkey.  There were a number of cities in ancient Turkey which later became part of the Greek Empire where they established themselves as traders, as merchants in that part of the world.  So the Jews by the end of the 6th century by around 530 – 520 were scattered all over the ancient world – North Africa, Europe, all over the Middle East and into the Far East.  But in 536 only a small group returned from one area.

There were other returns that took place in the 400’s with Ezra and Nehemiah, but they only came from Babylon. Now there might have bee a few individuals who decided to go back from Egypt or some other places; but there wasn’t a large movement, a large return.  There might have been an odd person here or there - like even the Apostle Paul had his parents send him down to Jerusalem so he could be trained as a rabbi, as a Pharisee.  So there would be odd individuals who went back for various reasons, but there were no other groups that returned.  So if God is going to bring a return at the end of the Tribulation that’s the second return from all these places from all around the world; when do we see in history a return of Jews to the land from the 4 corners of the earth, from all over the earth?  Well, the only time we see that in the last 2,000 years has been what has happened in the last 150 years - 150 – 160 years as you see the rise of Jewish Zionism.

That may seem redundant to some of you, but there are some Jews who aren’t Zionists.  They don’t believe there ought to be any Jews in the land until the Messiah returns. That was the dominant view as we’ve studied before.  That was the dominant view from the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 up to the early 1800’s.  In 1839, 1840 Rabi Judah Ben Alkolive (?)  publishes a tract which begins to influence people that yes you can go back to the land before the Messiah comes.  More and more begin to think that the Jews can return to the land without benefit of return to the Messiah.  This culminated in the first Zionist council that Theodore Hertzl called in the 1890’s.

Then you have through the 1890’s and on up to 1948 you had various Aliyahs.  Aliyah is from the Hebrew word Aliyah meaning to go up.  So you had these returns as people would go up to Jerusalem.  Jerusalem is always thought of as up.  Whenever you leave Jerusalem to go somewhere you are going down.  We think of up as north and down as south, but for the Jews up is Israel and the rest of the world is down.  So they’re always going up to Israel, up to Jerusalem.  So, that’s an Aliyah.  So every three or four years you had another Aliyah.  You had massive numbers – tens of thousands of Jews every three or four years returning to Israel.  Nothing like that had every happened before.  Now you have had in the 20th century a massive number of Jews return to the land.  So that’s the only other time in history that you have a return of Jews to the land.

Somebody might say, “Well, they’re not saved.”

Well, it doesn’t say that they were saved the first time.  In fact we know that they’re primarily not a regenerate nation for the first return because in order for the Tribulation to begin, the Antichrist has to sign a treaty with Israel.  This is in Daniel 9: 24f.  When the Antichrist signs that treaty with Israel that begins the 70th week of Daniel and that starts the countdown for that last 7 year period which is the period of the Tribulation.  It doesn’t start with the rapture.  It starts with the signing of that treaty between the Antichrist and Israel.

What does that tell you?  That tells you that there has to be a nation, a corporate entity with a governing body that is authorized to sign this covenant with the antichrist.  Now because they’re signing a covenant with the antichrist, you know that they’re apostate because they’re building a temple on the Temple Mount and you know that they have to build a temple on the Temple Mount so that you can have the abomination desolation half way through and the Antichrist can set up his image in the temple to be worshipped.  You know that if they’re building a temple, then they still haven’t accepted Jesus as Messiah which means that this nation that will be in existence in the tribulation period is an apostate nation.

So there has to be a return.  They have to return in apostasy.  In apostasy they are going to build the third temple which is an apostate temple.  That’s all just deduction from the text.  So if the second return is the return of a regenerate people to the land and God is bringing them back and that’s called the second one, then the only other candidate for the first one is this one. In other words there are only two worldwide returns.  So this is what we’re looking at today.

Now the focus in Jeremiah 31 is on this second return

NKJ Jeremiah 31:1 "At the same time," says the LORD, "I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people."

Isreal Cast Out

Four reasons why God cast out Israel out of the land.  RD/Daniel/039

First God cast them out of the land because of negative volition.  They had rejected God’s Word, God’s Word was not a priority for them, they would rather be involved in any of the details of life than be involved in going to listen to Jeremiah teach the Bible and responding positively by applying Bible doctrine in their lives.

Second reason that they were taken out of the land is given in Jeremiah 17:1-4, they were involved in idolatry.  Idolatry as, as Scripture clearly describes in several passage, idolatry is merely a subtle form of demonism.  It always gets man involved in depending upon himself for his own solutions, it introduces a false scale of values and in fact it emphasizes slavery to the details of life and this is seen in Jeremiah 17:1-12 actually.

The third reason they were taken out of the land is the primary reason and that is the rejection of the sabbatical law.  They rejected the seven year observance of the sabbatical year as described in Exodus 23:10-11, as well as in Leviticus 25:3-4; 2 Chronicles 36:20-21; and Jeremiah 25:11-12, and Jeremiah 29:10.

The fourth reason is that they were trying to solve their problems through human viewpoint techniques and not divine viewpoint techniques.  For them the human viewpoint technique is they were going down to Egypt and entering into alliances with the Egyptians in order to handle the military threat from Nebuchadnezzar.  God had set aside Israel as a unique nation so that Israel would demonstrate to all of the nations that they could face and handle all of their problems simply by relying upon God alone.  When they started relying upon other nations and looking to foreign alliances for their security, for their safety, they were rejecting God and they were operating on human viewpoint.  That’s no different than today when Christians rely upon all sorts of secular helps, such as secular psychology in order to try to solve the problems we face in life.  [seems to be a few words missing]…run into the same problem and enter into divine discipline, and with Israel they were taken out of the land.

Jesus and Muhammand

The differences between Jesus and Muhammad

a)      Jesus’ birth as the Messiah was prophesied in Scripture. Muhammad’s birth was not. For example, we are told in the Scriptures that Jesus would be a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He would be born into the tribe of Judah and the house of David, 2 Samuel 7:12-16; born of a virgin, Isaiah 7:14, and to be born in Bethlehem, Micah 5:2. There is no Scripture to appeal to about the birth of Muhammad.

b)      Jesus was foretold to be the Son of God and He claimed to be the Son of God, and the apostles also proclaimed Him as the Son of God. However, Muhammad and Islam reject this: God cannot have a son. He thought it was blasphemy to say that God has a son, so all Christians by definition are blasphemers and in the Koran they are to kill all blasphemers. That is why one of their sayings is to kill the Jews on Saturday and to kill the Christians on Sunday.

c)      Muhammad did not authenticate his claims with any works or miracles. He claimed that the Koran was the only sign needed to authenticate himself as a prophet.

d)      Jesus and the Old Testament prophets emphasise love. Over and over again in the Bible there is an emphasis on love—love for God, love for mankind, God’s love for mankind. But this is not true in the Koran. In fact, the Koran emphasises vengeance and vindictiveness and violence as opposed to love and forgiveness. In his book A Cup of Trembling, Dave Hunt writes: “Islam is fighting a holy war for control of the world. That war was begun by Muhammad himself in the 7th century and is still carried on today by his faithful followers through terrorism. The terrorists are not radicals or extremists as the media continually labels them. Instead, they are Islamic fundamentalists…” What is a fundamentalist? A fundamentalist is someone who believes in the fundamentals of whatever his system is. There is nothing extremist about it. Yet what has happened is that our modern liberal media is using the term fundamentalist as an insulting, negative term that is synonymous with extremism. That is a falsehood. The term Christian fundamentalist came into use because of a series of books published in the early 20th century called The Five Fundamentals of the Faith. The term Christian fundamentalist came into use to describe the people who believed in the five fundamentals of the faith; not extremists or crusaders. “… Instead, these are Islamic fundamentalists who are true to their religion and the teachings of the Koran, and who follow foully in the footsteps of their great prophet Muhammad. As one former Muslim and Islamic scholar has said: ‘We must never imagine that such Muslims are being unnecessarily wicked, they are simply being faithful to their religion. The fact is never hidden as to the attitude a good Muslim  should have towards Christians and Jews. In fact much of the incitement to violence and war in the whole of the Koran is directed against the Jews and Christians who rejected what they felt to be the strange God Muhammad was trying to preach.… Muhammad and his successors initiated offensive wars against peaceful countries in order to impose and implant by force as well as to seize the abundance of these lands. Their objective was to capture women and children and to put an end to the poverty and hunger from which Arab Muslims suffered. So Islam was forcibly imposed upon Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, Libya, Iraq, Iran, all of North Africa, some parts of India and China, and later Spain.” In fact western Europe fought the Muslims from the eight century up to the fifteenth century and it was only when Columbus and others came to the Americas and took back all of the gold from Mexico, South and North America that western Europe had the financial resources to finally defeat the Muslims. But what happened by the late 19th century and the use of oil is that the petro-dollars come along and now the Arabs are filthy rich and have the financial resources to go back on the warpath and to try to take over the world. Violence is clearly mentioned in numerous places in the Koran.

Jesus as YHWH, The Identiication of

The Identification of Jesus with YHWH; John 17:1-5

RD/John-096

The New Testament ascribes to Jesus the work of Yahweh. In Psalm 83:18 we see that the Bible clearly asserts that Yahweh is pre-eminent. He is the pre-eminent one in the Old Testament, he has priority over all creation and is distinct from creation, and he is unique: NASB “That they may know that You alone, whose name is the LORD [Yahweh], Are the Most High over all the earth.”

Along with this there are a number of other things that the Old Testament affirms about Yahweh. In Zechariah 12:10 we are told that Yahweh is pierced: NASB “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” Here it refers to the one pierced as an only son, and also firstborn. The term “firstborn” is used in Colossians 1:16, 17 to refer to Jesus, and it doesn’t mean first in the sense of time but first in the sense of priority. So the point is that the Old Testament speaks of Yahweh being pierced and this is fulfilled through the crucifixion of Jesus Christ on the cross, and that is in all of the Gospels.

The Old Testament speaks of Yahweh as the first and the last. Isaiah 44:6 NASB “Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: ‘I am the first and I am the last, And there is no God besides Me.” Even here there seems to be a distinction of person in this verse. When we come to the New Testament we find that this is ascribed to Jesus in Revelation 1:8 NASB “‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God, ‘who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty’.” [17] “When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last’.” So to Jesus in the New Testament is ascribed the same titles as to Yahweh in the Old Testament.

Isaiah saw and described the glory of Yahweh in Isaiah chapter six. Who is this King, the Lord of the armies? We discover that John identifies Him for us in the Gospel, John 12:41 NASB “These things Isaiah said because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him.” John is talking about the Lord Jesus Christ. So Isaiah saw the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ, identified as Yahweh.

Yahweh is described in the Old Testament as the shepherd of Israel. Psalm 32:1 NASB “The LORD [Yahweh] is my shepherd, I shall not want.” This is an important psalm because the inference is that because the Lord is my shepherd I have no need. God has supplied everything, He is sufficient in His grace, His revelation is sufficient, and he has provided everything in life. So we have no need anymore, no matter what our circumstances, no matter how difficult is may be, no matter how hard things may be. He is the great shepherd. Hebrews 13:20 NASB “Now the God of peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, {even} Jesus our Lord.” This is what He claimed in John 10:11.

Yahweh in the Old Testament is called Israel’s rock. This is a picture of His steadfastness, of His omnipotence, His power, and that God is unshakeable, nothing is more powerful; He is a fortress for us. In Deuteronomy 32:3, 4 NASB “For I proclaim the name of the LORD; Ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock! His work is perfect, For all His ways are just; A God of faithfulness and without injustice, Righteous and upright is He.” Psalm 18:2 NASB “The LORD [Yahweh] is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, My God, my rock, in whom I take refuge; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.” It is God who gives us the protection in whatever situation we are in. He is the one who completely surrounds us and protects us and when we take refuge in Him then there is nothing greater. Psalm 62:1, 2 NASB “My soul {waits} in silence for God only; From Him is my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, My stronghold; I shall not be greatly shaken.”

In the New Testament Jesus is identified as this rock in 1 Corinthians 10:4 NASB “and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.”

Every creature will bow down before Yahweh. Isaiah 45:23 NASB “I have sworn by Myself, The word has gone forth from My mouth in righteousness And will not turn back, That to Me every knee will bow, every tongue will swear {allegiance.}” This is the same thing picked up by Paul and ascribed to Jesus in Philippians 2:9-11 NASB “For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Yahweh is described in the Old Testament as the only saviour. Isaiah 43:10 NASB “‘You are My witnesses,’ declares the LORD, ‘And My servant whom I have chosen, So that you may know and believe Me And understand that I am He. Before Me there was no God formed, And there will be none after Me. [11] I, even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me’.” Isaiah 45:21 NASB “Declare and set forth {your case;} Indeed, let them consult together. Who has announced this from of old? Who has long since declared it? Is it not I, the LORD? And there is no other God besides Me, A righteous God and a Savior; There is none except Me.”

When we come to the New Testament Jesus is stated to be the only way of salvation. Acts 4:12 NASB “And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

Yahweh Himself will reign personally in Jerusalem in the promised kingdom. Isaiah 24:23 NASB “Then the moon will be abashed and the sun ashamed, For the LORD of hosts will reign on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, And {His} glory will be before His elders.” This is also expressed in Zephaniah 3:15-17 NASB “The LORD has taken away {His} judgments against you, He has cleared away your enemies. The King of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; You will fear disaster no more. In that day it will be said to Jerusalem: “Do not be afraid, O Zion; Do not let your hands fall limp. The LORD your God is in your midst, A victorious warrior. He will exult over you with joy, He will be quiet in His love, He will rejoice over you with shouts of joy.” This is the victory of Jesus Christ at the battle of Armageddon as he comes at the second advent to establish His kingdom on rhe earth. This is spelled out in Revelation 19:11ff NASB “And I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse, and He who sat on it {is} called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and wages war. His eyes {are} a flame of fire, and on His head {are} many diadems; and He has a name written {on Him} which no one knows except Himself. {He is} clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white {and} clean, were following Him on white horses. From His mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it He may strike down the nations, and He will rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the wine press of the fierce wrath of God, the Almighty. And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS’.” Revelation 20:4 NASB “Then I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was given to them. And I {saw} the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony of Jesus and because of the word of God, and those who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received the mark on their forehead and on their hand; and they came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.” So clearly the New Testament ascribes to Jesus the ruling and reigning of Yahweh in the Old Testament, they are viewed as one and the same person.

Furthermore, the coming of Yahweh in the Old Testament, the foretold coming of Yahweh, was announced by a forerunner. Isaiah 40:3 NASB “A voice is calling, ‘Clear the way for the LORD in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God’.” In the Gospel of Mark this passage in quoted and applied to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and to John the Baptist.

Yahweh is prophesied in the Old Testament to be a stumbling block to Israel. Isaiah 8:13,m 14 NASB “It is the LORD of hosts whom you should regard as holy. And He shall be your fear, And He shall be your dread. Then He shall become a sanctuary; But to both the houses of Israel, a stone to strike and a rock to stumble over, {And} a snare and a trap for the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” 1 Peter 2:7 NASB “This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, ‘THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER {stone,}’ and, ‘A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE’; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this {doom} they were also appointed.” What we have seen here is how many times we see Old Testament ascriptions to Yahweh applied in the New Testament to Jesus Christ.

When did Jesus become the Son of God? Did He become the Son of God or has He always been the Son of God? The Scriptures ascribe to Jesus three different titles. He is called the Son of God, the Son of Man, and the Son of David. It is clear that he becomes the Son of Man and the Son of David at His incarnation. Son of Man indicates His humanity. Son of David is a title for His Jewish royalty and identifies Him with the Davidic covenant. When Jesus is called the Son of God it is not talking about physical descent, it is not talking about birth. It is talking about deity, about what is ascribed to Him, i.e. full deity. The emphasis is on the fact that He shares the same attributes as God. So the question we have to ask is: when did He become the Son of God?

Scripture defines God as existing eternally as a Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They share the same identical essence. They are one in essence but three indistinct persons. How do they relate to one another throughout all eternity? We know that when Jesus becomes a man He is subordinate to the Father. We know that in terms of the Holy Spirit’s ministry that He proceeds from the Son and he proceeds from the Father. But is this just something that is related to their function toward man or is it related to the eternal relationship of the Trinity? The reason this is important is because it defines and provides a basis for understanding role relationships in almost every sphere in human society.

Psalm 2 is a royal psalm related to the coming of the King, the royalty of the Messiah and His relationship to the nation. It pictures the time when Jesus comes back at the Second Advent and establishes His rule and reign at the beginning of the Millennium.

Psalm 2:1, 2 NASB “ Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying…” Our whole view of history should be transformed once we read that passage because what we see is when nations are establishing themselves in independence they are doing it against God. The divine view of history is that they are taking their stand against the Lord, whether they realise it or not. When you start rejecting divine absolutes you are in rebellion against God.

They say: [3] “Let us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us! [4] He who sits in the heavens laughs, The Lord scoffs at them. [5] Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His fury, saying, [6] ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain.’ [7] “I will surely tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You’.” What does this mean? “Today I have begotten you.” When we get into the New Testament we are going to discover that that is applied at different phases in the Lord’s life.

Jesus Christ on the Cross

What kind of life did Jesus lay down for us on the cross?

RD/John 065

1)      What is the consequence, the penalty, for sin? Is it spiritual death or is it physical death. Genesis 2:16 NASB “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; [17] but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Notice the phrase “in the day [be yom].” This should be understood as a literal 24-hour day. “In the day” almost becomes an idiom for when, at the moment when you do something. So idiomatically it means “in the instant that you eat” something is going to happen. Then in the Hebrew there is a repetition of the verb—mot is a qal infinitive absolute; tamut is the second person singular qal imperfect of the same word, mot, and the verb means to die. It has been taught that the way to translate this is, “dying you shall die.” If we know anything about grammar we know that this word with the ing ending is either a gerundive or a participle. But this is an infinitive, and a participle is not an infinitive and an infinitive is not a participle. There is not a single Hebrew grammar anywhere that supports this translation. There are a number of other passages in the Scripture that use this same phraseology. Numbers 15:35 NASB “The man shall surely be put to death ...” Here is a qal infinitive absolute of mot plus a hophal imperfect, the same syntax, the same grammar, using the same verb. If you are going to execute somebody for a capital crime you would not say at that point, “you shall certainly dying him so that he shall die.” It doesn’t make sense. What is being said is emphasis, and that is the point that every grammar makes of a qal infinitive absolute plus an imperfect tense verb. It is for emphasis, for certainty, for surety, that at the moment this happens you will certainly die. Genesis 26:11 NASB “He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” This has the same phrase. Genesis 18:10 NASB “He said, ‘I will surely return to you at this time next year’ …” This is the Lord talking and He uses the qal infinitive absolute of shub (return) plus the qal imperfect to emphasise that “I will definitely, certainly return.” Genesis 22:17 NASB “indeed I will greatly bless you …” There we have a piel infinitive absolute plus a piel imperfect of barach meaning to bless: “I will certainly bless you,” not “blessing I will bless you.” So in Genesis 2 what God is saying is that “in the day, at that moment when you eat, you will definitely die.” What happened when Adam ate from the tree? He didn’t die physically. He was separated from God so that when God came to walk in the garden with Adam and Eve they went and hid, because they no longer had perfect righteousness and could not have fellowship with God. There was a separation that occurred. Adam was still alive physically but he had died spiritually so that there was a break in his relationship with God. The penalty for sin, then, is spiritual death. It is not physical death.  

2)      What we see here is that there are two categories of death for this discussion, physical death and spiritual death. Spiritual death itself has two categories. There is real spiritual death which is the death that Adam and all of his descendants experience. We are truly separated from God because we lack righteousness. Then there will be the substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Where we are headed with this is that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross accounted for our salvation was not His physical death, because physical death is not the penalty for sin. The penalty must be paid in kind.

3)      When Adam sinned in the garden of Eden the entire human race entered into spiritual death. God knows in His omniscience that what Adam did every one of us would do. Romans 5:1 NASB “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” There are seven of Adam’s sin in the garden: a) the instant Adam sinned he died spiritually; b) In spiritual death he became dichotomous having only a body and soul, Jude 19; c) his original sin generated the sin nature which is then genetically passed on to the entire human race; d) we sin because we have a sin nature; e) the incarnation of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union is the direct result of Adam’s original sin because only a man can die for man.

4)      In rightly dividing the Word of truth we must recognise that for the penalty of sin to be paid it must be paid in kind. A physical death does not pay the penalty for spiritual death, therefore the substitutionary death of our Lord must refer to a spiritual death and not a physical death.

5)      To understand the atonement we must define the meaning of atonement. It is a word that is used in the Old Testament but not in the New Testament. Atonement is a summary term that describes all that was accomplished by the death of Christ on the cross, including the need, the nature, the focus, the means, and the extent of that death. 

6)      The need for the atonement. The need is the character of God. God is perfect righteousness, absolute perfection, and He cannot have fellowship with any creature that is less than perfection. This is the standard of God’s character. It we don’t meet His standard we can’t have a relation ship with Him. Then there is the justice of God, the application of that standard. Because God is perfect His justice is perfect and He is perfectly fair, so what the righteousness of God demands in terms of the standard the justice of God executes or applies. But the love of God in eternity past initiated a solution based on the grace of God. Jesus Christ would pay the penalty as a substitute for mankind so that all the sins of mankind would be poured forth on Jesus Christ. Then when we believe in Jesus Christ God takes the perfect righteousness of Christ and gives it to us, imputes it to us, and that substitutes for our negative righteousness. So it is not our negative righteousness that is the issue anymore. That was paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross. The issue now is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and when we trusted Christ as saviour God the Father imputed to us the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and so when the perfect righteousness of God looks on us the standard is met. What the righteousness of God accepts the justice of God blesses, so that the justice of God can now bless us because of who Jesus Christ is and what He did on the cross.

7)      The nature of the atonement is substitutionary. This is seen in the Old Testament in the sacrifices. A Jewish believer in the Old Testament would bring a lamb to the priest and it would be placed on the altar. The believer would take his hand and put it on the lamb’s head and recite his sins. His sins were now transferred to that lamb as your substitute and then the lamb’s throat was cut as a reminder that sin is a horrible thing in God’s eyes. So the sacrificial system focused on substitution at its very core. This is seen in Isaiah 53:4 NASB “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. [5] But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being {fell} upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. [6] All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”       There are several false views of the atonement. One is called the moral view. It was first articulated by a priest in the Middle Ages who put forth the moral view which was basically that Christ’s death simply demonstrated how much God loved us and how dedicated Christ was to the plan of God, and so Christ’s death is an example to us of God’s great love and by looking to the cross we see God’s love revealed and that should encourage us to love other people and no longer live is selfishness and sin. This is the view of all the liberal denominations. They have all adopted this heretical moral view of the atonement, that it is just an example for us and not really a payment for sin.

8)      The focus in the atonement is towards God. In the early church they put forth the view called the ransom to Satan view, that Christ paid a price but He was paying it to Satan. It was completely heretical. The focus of the atonement is the satisfaction of God’s righteous demands, it has nothing to do with Satan.

9)      The means of the atonement is the spiritual death of Christ on the cross. He died as our substitute spiritually. 1 Peter 2:24 NASB “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”

10)   The extent of the atonement is to all men, not just to believers. 1 John 2:2 NASB “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for {those of} the whole world.” 2 Corinthians 5:15 NASB “and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” 1 Timothy 4:10 NASB “For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” 1 Timothy 2:4-6 NASB “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, {and} one mediator also between God and men, {the} man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony {given} at the proper time.”

John 10:11 NASB “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.” In contrast to the religious leaders who are nothing more than hirelings, they don’t care about the sheep and when they are threatened they will run. Jesus twice articulated the fact that He was the door and now twice He says that he is the good shepherd. [14] “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me.” The blind man responded to the call and he followed Jesus. [15] “even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.”

John 10:16 NASB “I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock {with} one shepherd.” These sheep are Israel; He has other sheep that are not Israel, they are Gentiles. This is a very cryptic prophesy of the church: “they will become one flock {with} one shepherd.” This hints to what is later revealed as mystery doctrine, that there is in the church neither Jew nor Greek, we are all one in Christ.

John 10:17 NASB “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. [18] No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.” This flies right in the face of all those who want to blame the Jews for the death of Christ. Jesus went to the cross willingly. He had a plan to fulfil; He had to accomplish the Father’s plan of substitutionary atonement for the human race.

Look at what happens in the reaction in vv. 19-22: A division occurred again among the Jews because of these words. Many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?” Others were saying, “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?” What does that do? It takes us right back to the whole theme that Jesus is the Light of the world, that if we follow Him and understand what he has revealed in His Word then we will not walk in darkness but will walk in light. The issue is our volition.

Jesus had to be a Man, Why

Why Jesus had to be a Man  RD/2 John 015

1.       He had to be a man to generate real historical righteousness. He had to produce real righteousness by the genuine volitional act of a real human being. The New Testament revelation requires that real humanity produce real historical righteousness as the basis or qualification to go to the cross. It is that generation of creaturely righteousness through a human Saviour that is imputed to man so that we can be saved.

2.       Priestly qualification. He can’t be a priest without being human; He can’t be a mediator without being human.

3.       To be our representative as the second Adam. He can’t be a second Adam without being fully human.

4.       His absolute revelation of God. Jesus had to be God so that when we see Jesus we see God. If he is just a man then He doesn’t present to us what God is like. He is the full expression of God, according to John chapter one.

5.       He had to be fully man to fulfil the Davidic covenant.

Philip Schaff makes the following comment about the importance of understanding the full incarnation of Christ:

“Regarding half-Docetic incarnation the church could not possibly accept such a view of a mutilated and stunted humanity of Christ, despoiled of its loyal head and such a merely partial redemption as this inevitably involved. The incarnation of the Logos is His becoming completely man. It involves, therefore, the assumption of the entire undivided nature of man, spiritual and bodily, with the sole exception of sin; which, in fact, belongs not to the original nature of man but has had entered from without.” So to be a redeemer Christ must also be fully man.

Jesus is Fully God

Jesus is Fully God                            RD/Rev. 066b

1)      The claim of exclusivity. This isn’t restricted to just one statement by Jesus, it permeates the Gospels. John 5:22. We have to recognize that it is not opinion. You may want to go so far as to say it is a matter of opinion or a matter of faith as to whether you believe Jesus is God, but you can’t say it is opinion that these books were all written by Jews in the first century who were monotheists. They believed Jesus was God as well as the Father. If you want to deny that, then the response to that is, okay now that you are constructing a house that is completely divorced from reality and has no foundation in history, I am not going to move into that house and dialogue with you; because if we are going to have a conversation that has any meaning whatsoever it has to be based on reason and fact and history. If you want to deny that and create your own reality, fine, but don’t expect me to live my life based on your redefinition of reality. John 14:6, another claim to exclusivity, as is Acts 4:12.

2)      Trinitarian claims, that God is a plurality and must exist as a plurality. Exodus 20:3, for the Jews, “You shall have no other gods before me.” That monotheism is one that includes within it plurality, it is not a Unitarian or singular monotheism, it is a plurality of persons within the Godhead. Deuteronomy 6:4: “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:” Is that a singularity or a plurality? The Hebrew word echad means a plurality that is combined in a unity. The best way to explain that to folks is to say, ‘Remember, God said about Adam and Eve that the two shall become one flesh.’ Same word for “one”! In Isaiah 50 the Lord is speaking, ‘Thus says the Lord,’ and the Lord, Yahweh, who is speaking says, ‘The Lord God has given me the tongue of the learned.’ So it indicates a plurality of persons there. Cf. Isaiah 50:5. The Lord is speaking and says, ‘The Lord God has opened my ear.’ Isaiah 48:12: “Listen to me, O Jacob and Israel, my called; I am he; I am the first, I also am the last.” That phrase indicates deity, and this title, ‘the first and the last,’ is applied to the Lord Jesus Christ in the book of Revelation. 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.” In that last phrase are three persons: the Lord who is speaking, the Lord God, and the Spirit. The Jews don’t like it, that is why they wanted to stone Jesus.

3)      The divine claims of Jesus Christ. Jesus clearly claimed to be God. John 10:30: “I and my Father are one.” You can’t get around that. John 8:58: “Jesus said unto them, Most assuredly, I say to you, Before Abraham was, I am.” That phrase “I am” to the Jews was a claim of God. When Jesus said this they picked up ricks to stone Him. They understood He was claiming to be God. To them that was blasphemy because they had bought into the Pharisees’ lie of a singular or Unitarian monotheism

Jewish Marriage

Jewish Marriage       RD/Rev/216b

The Jewish customs related to marriage are quite informative, and even though the initial audience of the book of Revelation were not Jews the writers were, and all of the Hebrew Scriptures, all the background was Jewish and oriented around Jewish marriage customs. So we need to understand what was involved in a Jewish marriage, a Jewish wedding and that which preceded it in terms of the betrothal.

The first step was the betrothal, and this would take place at least a year before the wedding itself. Many times the bride and groom never met before the wedding itself. The betrothal pictures the period of the church during the church age when the church has been betrothed to the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ has paid the bride price, the dowry, by His death on the cross. It was that purchase price paid by Christ on the cross that is equivalent to the bride price. At the ascension He left, and this also fits the pattern that would be seen in a Jewish wedding ceremony. We see this betrothal alluded to in Matthew 1:18. During the time between the arrangement of the wedding and the wedding itself the groom would leave, and it was the groom’s responsibility to prepare for having a wife—having a home, taking the financial responsibility for the family and for the marriage—and it was often not known precisely when the wedding itself would take place. The bride would be waiting for the groom until he came to fetch her. This also fits the pattern of Scripture. John 14:1-3 NASB “Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, {there} you may be also.” This is a great Rapture passage because what Jesus is saying is that He is going to go to the Father’s house (heaven), to prepare a place for the church (the bride), and He will come again and receive the bride to Himself “that where I am, {there} you may be also.” Where He is is in heaven, until the second coming. This indicates that He is going to be taking the bride to the place He has prepared, which is in heaven, not on the earth.

Once he has prepared things the next thing is for him to come and to get his bride. At times this was not going to be announced and it will be something of a surprise. He will come accompanied by his friends in order to bring her back to his home. What is interesting is that in 1 Thessalonians 4:14 Paul says, NASB “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” That is, when Jesus comes at the Rapture for those who are alive and remain He will be bringing with Him those who have preceded us in death. It is the father of the groom in a Jewish marriage who determines the timing, and secondly, the groom has to have completed the abode. That fits the biblical pattern: only the Father knows when the timing will be; the Lord Jesus Christ prepares a place for the bride. [15] “For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. [16] For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of {the} archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. [17] Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.”

The third thing that takes place is the wedding ceremony itself. Only a few people were invited to a wedding ceremony. Prior to the ceremony the bride is prepared. She would go through a ritual immersion or cleansing, which indicates the purification of the bride. This is analogous to the purification of the church at the judgment seat of Christ where the dead works of believers are burned off, consumed in fire, and the bride is left clothed with gold, silver, precious stones, the works of righteousness that are done through the power of God the Holy Spirit. The wedding ceremony itself takes place after the purification, so for the church that means there is the Rapture, then the judgment seat of Christ, and then the wedding itself take place in heaven at some time during the events of the Tribulation on the earth. At the end of the Tribulation period the marriage of the Lamb has already taken place.

Following the marriage there would be a marriage supper or feast and this could last as many as seven days. It was an opportunity to celebrate the union of the two people who had just been married. Many more people would be invited to the feast than would be invited to the marriage ceremony itself. So we see all of these steps portrayed in the way the church is brought into its final union with the Lord Jesus Christ. The Father made the arrangements; the Son paid the bride price and purifies the church—Ephesians 5:25, 27.

Summary

·       It is crucial to mark the distinction between the wedding itself and the marriage supper. They are two different things.

·        There is an invitation to the marriage supper.

·        Then the Lamb will return; He will destroy His enemies.

·        After the destruction of the enemies and the purification of the earth, the judgment of the nations, there will be the marriage feast during a 75-day interval between the second coming and the beginning of the Millennial kingdom.

·        It is crucial to mark the distinction between the marriage of Yahweh in the Old Testament to Israel and the marriage of the church to Jesus Christ. These are two different relationships that are depicted in the Scripture.

·        In the Old Testament Yahweh is depicted as the husband of Israel. Jeremiah 3:14; Isaiah 54:5; Ezekiel 16:8.

·        The basis for this marriage is the bond of the covenant. But that covenant can be violated, broken through the unfaithfulness of the bride (Israel). Spiritual adultery is a biblical concept but what it refers to is idolatry and disobedience to God in the Old Testament context.

·      Isaiah 50:1 NASB “Thus says the LORD, “Where is the certificate of divorce By which I have sent your mother away? Or to whom of My creditors did I sell you? Behold, you were sold for your iniquities, And for your transgressions your mother was sent away.” When God put away Israel in discipline and kicked them out of the land it wasn’t a divorce, it was a separation. God is still faithful to His covenant with Israel; He has never cut them off completely.

·        Revelation 19:7, the marriage of the Lamb. This is not the marriage of Yahweh because Yahweh never put away Israel; there is no remarriage. The marriage here is the marriage of the Lamb to the church.

·        The church was not mentioned in the Old Testament at all; it was a mystery (hidden).

Ephesians 5:23-27 NASB “For the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself {being} the Savior of the body. But as the church is subject to Christ, so also the wives {ought to be} to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless.”

This then leads to the wedding invitation. Revelation 19:9 NASB “Then he said to me, “Write, ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.’ And he said to me, ‘These are true words of God.’ [10] Then I fell at his feet to worship him. But he said to me, ‘Do not do that; I am a fellow servant of yours and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus; worship God. For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.’” There are several times in Scripture there is an angel giving a message and somebody wants to fall down and worship the angel, and the angel says not to do that. But when the Lord Jesus Christ was on the earth and people would worship Him, He never said that, indicating that He understood that He was complete deity. That is why we must say that the voice that is coming out from the throne in this section is neither the Father nor the Son, nor the Holy Spirit, but is an angel in service to the Lord. In this verse the word “prophecy” is not talking so much about foretelling future events. Actually, prophecy is a term that has more to do with revealing God’s will to man. The title of this book is the revelation from Jesus Christ, not about Jesus Christ. God gives this body of doctrine to Jesus Christ to reveal further to His servants. That is what is alluded to here in verse 10—“For the testimony of Jesus,” referring back to the unveiling of this revelation, “is the spirit of prophecy [or the thought of prophecy].” That summarizes or ends this prelude to the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Judas

Introduction: Was Judas a Believer or Not?: 4 Problem Passages; Investiture & Commission of the Disciples, Matthew 10:1-8, 20 SIXTH ANNUAL SHREVEPORT BIBLE CONFERENCE

June 6, 7, & 8, 2001

East Ridge Bible Church

Shreveport, Louisiana

Joe Griffin

BETRAYAL

The Soul Inversion of Judas Iscariot

A.       Introduction:

In recent Bible classes in St. Louis we have been studying the Passover, the Christian Eucharist, and the Jewish Seder.  That study took us to passages in the Gospels where the Lord observed with His apostles the last Passover and instituted the Eucharist as a permanent ritual for the upcoming Church Age.  These events are revealed in John, chapters 13 and 14, in what is commonly referred to as the Upper Room Discourse.  In chapter 13 there are two verses that, when read from the King James Version, seem to indicate Judas Iscariot was Satan possessed.  There are a couple other verses in the Gospels that also suggest this idea.  However, I made the assertion that Judas Iscariot was not Satan possessed but instead Satan influenced and in fact was a believer in Jesus Christ.  Some were shocked at this and I decided that I needed to address the subject in enough detail to quell their misunderstanding.  I have selected the Shreveport Bible Conference as the vehicle for doing this.  Thus, this year’s conference is entitled, Betrayal: The Soul Inversion of Judas Iscariot.

Now in order to begin I’d like to quote the controversial verses from the King James Version so that you might see the source of confusion about Judas’s spiritual condition.

John 6:70 - “Have I not chosen you twelve (disciples), and one of you is a devil?”  [KJV]

John 13:2 - And supper being ended, the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray Him.  [KJV]

John 13:27 - And after the sop Satan entered into him (Judas).  [KJV]

Luke 22:3 - Then entered Satan into Judas surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve.  [KJV]

If one jumps to conclusions based on the English translation of these verses he is very likely to calculate that Judas was Satan possessed and as a result an unbeliever.  By doing so, such a person clouds his mind with a false premise that prevents him from realizing and learning phenomenal insight from the Word of God regarding our Lord’s relationship with Judas Iscariot.  In fact, much of what Jesus had to say to the scribes and Pharisees was also directed at this twelfth disciple.

In order for us to understand these verses in their proper context it is necessary that we go back to the beginning of the Lord’s ministry and learn about His appointment of the twelve disciples among whom was Judas Iscariot.  Further, we must also understand the initial environment in which these twelve men functioned in the early phases of our Lord’s earthly ministry.

B.          The Investiture & Commission of the Disciples:

         VISUAL: The Function of Disciples and Apostles

Matthew 10:1 - And having summoned His twelve disciples, He gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every kind of disease and every kind of sickness.

1- During the course of the Incarnation Jesus Christ had thousands of followers that are referred to as “disciples.”

2- Here we have a select dozen who have this title.  Consequently, these twelve are being distinguished from those that are among the “multitudes.”

3- The word for disciple is the Greek noun:

                   maqht»j / mathetes / - “a student; one under instruction from one with superior rank, knowledge, and authority.”

4- During the Incarnation, Jesus had thousands of disciples.  Here we learn that these twelve are given a promotion from a temporary rank to permanent rank.

5- As permanent-rank disciples, these twelve are invested with the power and authority to cast out demons, heal the sick, and perform miracles.

6- Investiture is the best English word to define the grant of assets associated with this promotion.  It is defined by Webster’s: to furnish with power and authority; to grant someone control or authority over; the act of establishing in office.

7- The power and authority possessed by the twelve enabled them to cast out demons.  “Cast out” is one word in the Greek: the present active infinitive of the verb:

           ™kb£llw / ekballo / -  “to drive out; to expel; to throw out forcibly.”

8- This is not exorcism.  Those who “cast out” demons— ekballo—do so because they have the power and authority to do so, such as our Lord, or they are invested with the power and authority to do so, as with the disciples.

9- Exorcism is the practice of charlatans, false teachers, and emissaries of Satan.  The word for exorcism is:

            ™xorkist»j / exorkistes / -        “to administer an oath, e.g., by the recitation of particular names; one who employs a formula of conjuration for the expulsion of demons.”  This word is found in:

Acts 19:13 - Some of the Jewish exorcists [ ™xorkist»j / exorkistes / ], who went from place to place, attempted to name over those who had the evil spirits [ demon possessed unbelievers ] the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, “I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches.”

v. 14 - And seven sons of one Sceva / SEE-vah /, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this.

v. 15 -  And the evil spirit [ the indwelling ™ggastr…muqoj / engastrimuthos / or “ventriloquist” demon ] answered and said to them, “I recognize Jesus, and I know about Paul, but who the hell are you?”

v. 16 -  And the man, in whom was the evil spirit, leaped on two of them and subdued and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

10-        The twelve to whom the “casting out” of demons was invested had much better success than the sons of Sceva as is demonstrated in a parallel passage to Matthew 10:

Mark 6:12 - And they [ the twelve ] went out and preached that men should repent [ change their minds about Jesus by believing that He is the Messiah ].

v. 13 -  And they were casting out [ ™kb£llw / ekballo / ] many demons and were anointing with oil many sick people and healing them.

11-        Consequently there is a marked difference between the two methods of expelling demons in Scripture, one legitimate, the other demonic. 

12-        Now the question arises: Who are these twelve men who have been granted the permanent rank of disciple with the plenipotentiary power to cast out demons and heal the sick?

Matthew 10:2 - Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: The first, Simon [ also: Simon Bar-jona, Cephas (Aramaic), or Peter (Greek) ], who is called Peter  and Andrew his brother; and James the son of Zebedee and John his brother;

v. 3 -    Philip and Bartholomew [ Nathaniel ]; Thomas [ Didymus ] and Matthew [ Levi ] the tax-gatherer; James [ the Small; the Younger; the Less ] the son of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus [ Jude; Judas (not Iscariot), & Lebbaeus ];

v. 4 -    Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot [ 'IoÚdaj'Iskarièthj / Ioudas Iskariotes /: Judas, man of the city of Kerioth, a Judean community in the Negev or the South ], the one who betrayed Him.

13-        All twelve of these disciples have the investiture of plenipotentiary power and authority to cast out demons, heal the sick, and perform miracles.

14-        In addition to this investiture they are given a commission, which according to Webster’s is: an authorization or command to act in a prescribed manner or to perform prescribed acts; the authority to act for, in behalf of, or in place of another; a task entrusted to one as the agent of another; a group of persons directed to perform some duty.

15-        The Lord’s commission to the twelve has to do with their promotion to the temporary rank of apostle and is the subject of the remainder of chapter 10.  For the purpose of our study the first four verses are pertinent:

Matthew 10:5 - These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles; and do not enter any city of the Samaritans;

Matthew 10:6 - “but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

v. 7 -    “And as you go, preach saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’

v. 8 -    “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons [ ™kb£llw / ekballo / ]; freely you received, freely give.”

16-        The commission to take the message of the Gospel and the kingdom to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel” provides the twelve with a promotion to temporary rank of apostle.

17-        The twelve were invested by our Lord with permanent rank of disciple which carried plenipotentiary power and authority.  These twelve were also given a temporary promotion to the rank of apostle for the purpose of taking the message of the kingdom to the Jews only.

18-        Later these twelve will become promotable to the permanent rank of apostle for the Church Age.

19-        However, that consideration is not pertinent at the moment and does not become so until after the resurrection, a concept we will introduce later in our study.

20-        The concept of temporary and permanent rank is an illustration taken from our military’s policy of assigning rank in peacetime and in wartime.  Here’s an example:

21-        When George Armstrong Custer was graduated by the United States Military Academy in 1861 he was commissioned as second lieutenant and later rose to the permanent or regular rank of captain.  During the War Between the States he distinguished himself at the Battle of Second Manassas and was given a brevet promotion to the temporary rank of brigadier general.

After the war, Custer returned to his permanent or regular army rank of captain.  He later rose to the permanent rank of lieutenant colonel, which he retained until his death in the Battle of Little Big Horn.

22-        This example enables us to illustrate the status of the original twelve disciples who were granted the temporary rank of apostle at the beginning of our Lord’s ministry.

23-        From this analysis of Matthew 10 we are now able to draw several conclusions regarding the spiritual status quo of Judas Iscariot:

           1)        It would be incongruous for the Lord Jesus Christ to appoint as permanent rank disciple and temporary rank apostle a man who was an unbeliever:

2 Corinthians 6:14 - Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness; or what fellowship has light with darkness?

v. 15 -  Or what harmony has Christ with Belial, or what has a believer in common with an unbeliever?

2)          It would be divisive for the Lord Jesus Christ to invest the power and authority to cast out demons to an unbeliever.  In fact, it would be impossible for an unbeliever to do so since this power and authority can only be exercised by a believer:

Luke 11:14 - And Jesus was casting out a demon [ ™kb£llw / ekballo / ], and it was dumb; and it came about that when the demon had gone out, the dumb man spoke; and the multitudes marveled.

v. 15 -  But some of them [ Pharisees ] said, “He casts out demons by the agency and authority of Beelzeboul, the ruler of the demons [ flag rank demon general ].”

v. 16 -  And others, to test Him, were demanding of Him a sign from heaven.

Luke 11:17 - But He knew their thoughts, and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls.

v. 18 -  “And if [ first class condition: as you assert by your accusation ] Satan also is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand?”  For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzeboul.

v. 19 -  “And if [ first class condition: as you assert ] I by Beelzeboul cast out demons, by whom do your disciples cast them out?  Consequently, they shall be your judges.

v. 20 -  “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God [ first class condition: the Lord’s assertion of fact: and I do ], then the kingdom of God has come to you.”

3)          And when the twelve went out with their investiture of power and authority and their commission to take the message of the kingdom to the lost sheep of the house of Israel they did so under the enabling power of the enduement of the Holy Spirit.

4)          In the midst of the Lord issuing the details of the apostles’ commission we find this dramatic statement:

Matthew 10:20 - “It is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit of your Father who speaks in you [ enduement ].”

24-        Only believers receive the ministries of the Holy Spirit, regardless of the dispensation.  Therefore, if Judas Iscariot is indeed a believer what caused him to enter into carnality?  What prevented him from recovering through rebound?  What motivated his decline through the several stages of reversionism all the way to the sin unto death?

25-        We begin our answers to these questions with what proved to be Judas’s besetting sin.       

 C.      Judas’s Monetary Lust:

1-      In order to identify the original cause that led to the fall of Judas we need to consult a passage of Scripture that is located at the end of the Incarnation.

John 12:1 - Jesus, therefore, six days before the Passover [ Nisan 8, 29 ], came to Bethany where Lazarus was, whom Jesus had raised from the dead.

v. 2 - So they made him a supper there, and Martha was serving; but Lazarus was one of those reclining at the table with Jesus.

v. 3 - Mary therefore took a pound of very costly perfume of pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped His feet with her hair; and the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

v. 4 - But Judas Iscariot, one of His disciples, who was intending to betray Him, said,

v. 5 - “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to the poor?”

v. 6 - Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.

2-        Two verbs inform us of Judas’s problem.  The first is the imperfect active indicative of:

               e„m… / eimi / -              “was a thief”

        imperf.:        Signifies continuous action in past time.

Dana, H. E. and Julius R. Mantey.  A Manual Grammar of the Greek New Testament.  (Toronto: The Macmillan Co., 1955), 186-87:

The imperfect is a sort of moving panorama, a “moving picture show.”  It helps us see the course of an act.  It passes before the eye a flowing stream of history.  The imperfect denotes an incomplete action, one that is in its course, and is not yet brought to its intended accomplishment.

               active:           Judas Iscariot produces the action of habitual extortion motivated by monetary reversionism.

               indic.            Declarative; a statement of fact: Judas was a thief.

               The second verb is the imperfect active indicative of:

               bast£zw / bastazo / -           “to take surreptitiously, to pilfer; to steal repeatedly in small quantities.”

               imperf.:        Customary; denotes that which has regularly or ordinarily occurred in past time.  Here the English expression “used to” is generally a good rendering.

               active:           Judas had made a practice of purloining the purse that he was entrusted to manage by the Lord.

               indic.:           Declarative; this is a fact.

3-        This passage puts Judas Iscariot into continual carnality.  In fact, by the time this event transpired, he was in advanced reversionism.

4-        As with every member of the human race, Judas had a sinful nature, which has several manifestations including its lust patterns, one of which is the insatiable desire for money.

 5-       However, it is apparent that Judas was also motivated by yet another problem and that is involvement in the three arrogant skills.

6-        It is interesting to note that he did not steal large sums of money.  And in his most infamous moment he accepted a sum of only about $50 dollars to betray the Lord, surely a significant amount at that time but not one considered sufficient for the task accomplished.

7-        Judas self-justified the idea that he had a right to some of the money contributed to the Lord and His apostles. This indicates that he lived in constant carnality.

8-        This made Judas susceptible to the other weaknesses of his sinful nature.  The one that manifests itself as the major motivation for his betrayal of Jesus is crusader arrogance.

9-        Crusader arrogance is the false assumption that your standards are so perfect that you have a right to impose them on others, by force if necessary.

10-      To fully understand Judas’s betrayal of Jesus, we must develop the political circumstances that were present at the beginning of the Lord’s public ministry.

11-      This takes us to a study of the commission given to the apostles in:

Matthew 10:5 - These twelve Jesus sent out after instructing them, saying, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans;

v. 6 -    but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

v. 7 -    “And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

12-      This requires us to take up a study of the two divine plans for setting up the kingdom of heaven.  There is an original plan offered to Israel only we will call Plan A and an alternate plan offered to both Jews and Gentiles we will call Plan B.

D.      Plans A & B of the Incarnation:

1-        The Lord’s initial offer to Israel, or Plan A, was that the millennial kingdom, prophesied by the Old Testament writers, was “at hand.”

2-        When the Jews as a nation rejected this offer, the Lord switched over to Plan B and made preparations for the Church Age by placing his temporary rank apostles on a promotion list for permanent rank apostle.

3-        An excellent description of this original offer and the subsequent shift over to emphasis on the Church Age is provided by:

Thieme, R. B., Jr.  The Divine Outline of History: Dispensations and the Church.  (Houston: R. B. Thieme, Jr., Bible Ministries, 1989), 41-43:

Jesus Christ stood at a fork in the road of history.  He gave human volition an option.  He proclaimed that the kingdom of heaven was “at hand,” not that it had actually arrived.  In other words, the king was present, but the kingdom’s arrival was contingent on the attitude of Israel.  Would the Jews accept or reject their king?  We know in hindsight which way history went, but at the time it was an open question.

Christ presented the kingdom to Israel as a legitimate offer, even though omniscient God knew in advance that Israel would reject Christ as Messiah.  In eternity past God knew that the Church Age would chronologically follow our Lord’s first advent.  However, God provides real options and opportunities so that man has genuine freedom of choice.  God’s veracity guarantees that any divine offer is legitimate.  God is truth.  If He made an “offer” to the Jews and held them responsible for their decision when no genuine option existed, He would be violating His veracity and justice.

The Gospels seem difficult to understand because they describe a real option presented to Israel, which Israel rejected.  But how could Christ have died for sins yet still have established His earthly kingdom at the same time?  Christ’s death on the cross did not depend on Jewish rejection.  The Romans alone could have executed Him.

Ironically, the nation did reject her king and even played a role in His death.  The self-serving antagonism of the Jewish leaders was representative of negative volition in the overwhelming majority of Jewish citizens.

Given every opportunity to believe in Christ as Savior, the Jews adamantly refused.  Certainly there were remarkable exceptions.  But the remnant in Israel was too small to counterbalance the vast majority.

Israel’s rejection of Her Messiah does not mean that Jesus Christ’s mission on earth ended in failure.  He postponed the earthly kingdom of heaven and initiated a second ministry.

4-        The Lord’s original offer of the kingdom to Israel is Plan A.  His subsequent shift over to preparation for the Church Age is Plan B.

 5-       In fact, Plan A is prophesied in the Old Testament and its total fulfillment is found in the New Testament.  What is not found in the Old Testament is any mention of the Church Age.

6-        We may speculate that had the Jews accepted Jesus as Messiah then the Romans would have executed Him anyway since the Lord’s claim to be a King would have been considered by the Romans to be the capital crime of treason.

7-        The likelihood of this assumption can be deducted from four passages, John 6:15; Mark 11:8-10, John 18:33-38, and John 19:12.

8-        These verses provide known facts indicating that had the Sanhedrin and the Jewish nation openly accepted Jesus of Nazareth as their Messiah, they would have demanded that He set up a political kingdom immediately and would have proclaimed Him publicly to be the King of the Jews.

9-        Thus through deduction from known facts we may draw reasonable conclusions regarding the likely events of Plan A:

1)        Jesus would have been proclaimed by the people and the Sanhedrin as their Messiah and exalted as King of the Jews.

2)        The Romans would have viewed this as treason and arrested Jesus on such charges.

3)        He would have been found guilty and sentenced to the ignominious death of Roman crucifixion.

4)        All humanity’s sins would have been imputed to him and judged.

5)        He would have died physically, been buried, and then resurrected on the third day.

6)        Following a brief period of about 40 days the Lord would have ascended into heaven terminating the Incarnation and beginning the Tribulation.

7)        After seven years He would have returned at His Second Advent to set up His millennial reign or the “kingdom of heaven.”

10-      When the twelve disciples were chosen and the commission given to go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel with the message, “the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” all twelve assumed that “at hand” meant “right now.”

11-      And the prospect of the kingdom of heaven occurring “right now” meant that Jesus would set up His kingdom in Jerusalem and immediately remove Israel out from under the rule of the deranged Tiberius Caesar and his chief administrator Lucius Sejanus / See-JA-nus /.

12-      This prospect appealed to Judas who fully believed that Jesus was the Messiah of Israel.  Believing Jesus to be the Messiah required an understanding of Old Testament prophecy, accepting Him as undiminished deity and true humanity, which is the concept of the hypostatic union, and that Messiah would be judged for his sins.

13-      But Judas expected Jesus to set up His kingdom immediately and deal with sins later.  When the Lord refused to challenge Rome or Caesar, Judas rejected Him, not as Messiah but rather as a reluctant Messiah that needed to be forced to take action.

14-      What Judas failed to realize was that sacrifice must precede deliverance, suffering must precede glory—the cross must come before the crown.

15-      Judas was a political animal who had his sights set on becoming a part of the Lord’s millennial administration, specifically Secretary of Treasury.

16-      When the Lord refused to become actively involved in confronting the political power structure in Jerusalem or Rome, Judas entered into the three arrogant skills.

17-      Judas saw Jesus as the promised political figure who could bring Roman tyranny to a permanent end.  As a result he entered into crusader arrogance and began to promote Jesus as King of the Jews. 

      18-     The Lord’s refusal to play politics caused Judas to enter into a vicious vortex of poor                     decisions that took him into soul inversion and his own tragic demise.

E.       The Political Environment of the Incarnation:

           It will be helpful to start with a brief summary of the politics of Israel during the time of the Incarnation.

Tenney, Merrill C. (ed.)  The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1976).

                       1)    Sanhedrin:          The Greek word is Sunšdrion / Sunedrion / and means “sitting in council.”  According to the Mishnah the membership numbered seventy-one, the seventy-first being the high priest.

                              Among them were the chief priests: ¢rciere‹j / archiereis /, who consisted of former high priests and priestly families, and the scribes: grammate‹j / grammatis /, professional scholars and experts in matters of the Mosaic Law and therefore “lawyers.”  The chief priests were predominantly Sadducees.

                       2)    Sadducees:          (Saddouka…oi  / Saddoukaioi /)  These were Jewish aristocrats who in the first century held office by permission of Rome.  Consequently, their policies were motivated by their vested interests.   Preservation of the status quo motivated them to constantly appease Rome.  This objective was realized by their ability to maintain a state of tranquility in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine.  As a result the public excitement regarding Jesus was of grave concern to them.

                              They regarded themselves as proponents and guardians of the Mosaic Law.  Sadducees rejected the position held by the Pharisees that the oral law could be traced back to Moses and thus was on equal footing with the Torah.

                       3)    Pharisees:           (Parisa‹oi / Pharisaioi /)          These leaders were almost exclusively from the middle class and therefore had a large public following.  The average Pharisee was not a theologian and thus had to rely on the biblical scholars of their party known as the scribes.  The major characteristic of the Pharisees was the importance they attached to the oral law, known today as the Talmud.  The Pharisees placed the oral law on equal footing with the Torah, or the Law of Moses, and this brought them into conflict with the Sadducees.

                              Their emphasis on the minutia of the oral law, even when its application was contrary to the written Law of Moses, is what prompted the Lord to pose the question in:

Matthew 15:3 - “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God [ the Torah ] for the sake of your tradition [ the Talmud ]?”

4)        Scribes: (grammate‹j / grammatis /)  These were scholars on the written law, the Torah, and the oral law, the Talmud.  They are associated with the Sadducee and Pharisee parties.  The scribes challenged Jesus principally on His disobedience to traditional practices contained in the oral law.

                       5)    Another group of importance was the elders: presbÚteroi / presbuteroi / , who were the officers in the synagogues and responsible for the government of the Jewish community.

                       6)    Zealots: (Zhlèthj / zelotes /)    This was a Jewish political party that promoted a liberation movement in Palestine.  Their members completely rejected Roman rule and believed that no one should rule Israel but God Himself.  As a result their theology taught that strict compliance with the Mosaic Law would enable God to send Messiah, Who would subdue Roman rule, disband the Sanhedrin, and establish His millennial kingdom. 

                              The Zealots were so driven by the alleged righteousness of their cause that they justified any means that they believed would contribute to their desired end.  Consequently they often resorted to intrigue, violence, force, and deception in pursuit of their liberation of Palestine.

                              The Pharisees were as intensively patriotic as were the Zealots but had a different view about subservience to Roman rule.  The Pharisees believed Roman control was the result of divine punishment whose intent was to bring about national repentance.  On the other hand, the Zealots were in total opposition to Rome and believed that any subservience to the Empire prevented the coming of Messiah.  As a result they refused to pay taxes, often harassed Roman officials, and refused to speak the Greek language.

2-      When the Lord’s ministry started, His working of miracles, healing the sick, raising the dead, and casting out demons resulted in a growing public following and its attendant controversy.

3-      The Sadducees didn’t like the idea of the public upheaval because it jeopardized the peace and tranquility of Jerusalem and Palestine.  Civil disobedience brought about the unnecessary attention of the Roman authorities who expected the Sanhedrin to keep the Jewish population under control.

4-      The Pharisees were opposed to the Lord’s ministry because He was a threat to their control over public opinion in Palestine.  Jesus’ teachings along with his miracles and healings were winning over their constituency.  Allowed to continue, Jesus would irreparably damage their reputation, discredit their theology, and undermine their power over the people.  Consequently, their primary motivation was to catch him in violation of the oral traditions and in doing so demonstrate that he could not be the Messiah.

5-      The scribes considered themselves to be the ultimate authorities on the Mosaic Law—the Torah, and the oral law—the Talmud.  As the renowned theologians of the day, the scribes were desirous to test the Lord on both accounts.  They are often found in concert with the Pharisees in the Gospel accounts that document their debates with Jesus.  Pharisees in general were not scholars or experts on the Torah or the Talmud but the scribes were, thus they were always on hand to advise the Pharisees in their deliberations with the Lord.

6-      Any interest that these groups had in the Lord was for the purpose of information gathering or attempts to discredit His claim of Messiahship, His message, and His ministry.

F.       The Spiritual Inversion of Judas Iscariot:

1-        Judas Iscariot was possibly one of the earliest disciples.  He was allegedly drawn to the Lord’s ministry in Galilee where, according to an extra-biblical account in the Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, he was among those called to the rank of permanent disciple in Matthew 4:18-22 along with Peter, Andrew, James, and John.

2-        There is not enough information, nonbiblical or biblical, to establish if Judas was a Pharisee or a Zealot but his behavior during the Lord’s public ministry seems to indicate the latter.

3-        Whatever his political persuasion, we get a feel for the personality of Judas from an article about him by:

Lockyer, Herbert.  All the Apostles of the Bible.  (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1972), 101-102:

As discipleship had to precede apostleship, there must have been qualities and capacities in Judas which Jesus recognized.  When Judas joined Jesus it was more as a patriot or political leader than as a personal friend, and his mind interpreted the words and deeds of Christ through the medium of his own anticipation.

Strong-willed, as well as conceited, Judas could not brook the idea of being mistaken in his first opinion of the new King.  The other disciples had found a Teacher who awoke admiration and love, but with Judas it was different.  Political ambition, love of place and power, prospect of the Kingdom being proclaimed were his main inducements in joining those who were following the King.

The love of money had been in his heart from earlier days, and he was thus a double-minded man.  Had he followed the Master fully he might have had the noblest of lives, and the most blessed of destinies, but he took his sin with him into the service of Christ until ultimately his habitation became desolate, and his bishopric [his promotion to the rank of permanent apostle] was taken by another.

4-        We learn a great deal about Judas from the fact that the Lord appointed him treasurer of His group of disciples.  As the Lord’s ministry grew during the Incarnation there were those who contributed logistical necessities to the disciples including money. 

Luke 8:1 - And it came about soon afterwards, that He began going about from one city and village to another, proclaiming and preaching the kingdom of God; and the twelve were with Him,

v. 2 - and also some women who had been healed of evil spirits and sicknesses: Mary who was called Magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out,

v. 3 - and Joanna the wife of Chuza / COO-za /, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who were contributing to their support out of their private means.

5-        The word “contributing” is the imperfect active imperative of the verb:

                       diakonšw / diakonew / -       “to give help and support to someone.”

                       imperf.:        Progressive of duration; contemplates the process as having gone on in past time up to the time denoted by the context but without any necessary inference as to whether or not the process has been completed.

                       active:           The women in context produce the action of making consistent contributions to the Lord’s treasury.

                       indic.:           This is a statement of historical fact.

           6-        This “help and support” can consist of property, possessions, or private means which includes money.  That these ladies were following the Lord as He traveled does not imply material goods but rather financial support.

7-        The one to whom these grace gifts were entrusted was Judas Iscariot.  Why Judas?  Since the Lord assigned to him the treasury it is obvious that He perceived in Judas an aptitude for finance.   It is also obvious that the other eleven disciples trusted Judas with the funds because up until the very end they never questioned his disbursement of them.

8-        However, we have already learned from John 12:1-6 that Judas had a lust for money.  As the period of the Incarnation progressed that lust developed into monetary reversionism.

9-        Whether Judas was a Pharisee or a Zealot cannot be determined with certainty but it is apparent that as the Incarnation progresses his displeasure with the Lord is fed by the fact that Jesus never challenges the Roman establishment.

10-       The fact that Judas accepted the position of treasurer implies that he had an affinity for the position.  When it becomes apparent that Jesus does not intend to set up the kingdom immediately Judas’s disenchantment increases. 

11-      This seems to indicate that he had his mind set on the Secretary of Treasury for Client Nation Israel in the millennial kingdom.

12-      We find that Judas is onboard and supportive of the Lord as Messiah at the beginning of His public ministry.  In the early days, a.d. 26, the message was “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

13-      This was the message that Judas as a Zealot would have supported.  In his mind it meant an end to Roman rule, the beginning of the Messianic kingdom, and he himself as a major player in the new administration.

14-      The Lord established the headquarters for His public ministry at Capernaum, a city on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee on a major trade route between the Mediterranean Sea and Damascus.  It was here in Galilee that the Lord performed His first miracles and Judas was on hand to witness them as a disciple:

Matthew 4:23 - Jesus was going about in all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.

v. 24 -  And the news about Him went out into all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, taken with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics, and He healed them.

v. 25 -  And great multitudes followed Him from Galilee and Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

15-      It was out from this these “multitudes” that disciples of Jesus emerged to hear His teaching.  His first major address is found in Matthew 5-7 and is referred to as the Sermon on the Mount.  The site of the speech is traditionally located about 2 miles west of Capernaum. 

16-      This sermon was Jesus’ formal announcement of the policies He would establish in His kingdom.  Judas would have interpreted this speech as a logical first step in establishing His millennial government.

17-      Also encouraging to Judas was the Lord’s opening volley against the scribes and Pharisees in:

Matthew 5:19 - “Whoever annuls one of the least of the commandments, and so teaches others shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teachers them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

v. 20 -  “For I say to you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

18-      Following the sermon on the mount the Lord returned to Capernaum, took a boat trip to Gergesa /GUR-ge-sa / and back, and then traveled among all the cities in the area of the Sea of Galilee.

19-      Because of the tremendous response by the multitudes the Lord determined that He could not minister to all the people by Himself.

Matthew 9:36 - And seeing the multitudes, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and downcast like sheep without a shepherd.

v. 37 -  Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.

v. 38 -  “Therefore, beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

 20-     The Lord appeals for His disciples to pray for divine assistance in dealing with the volume of people who were coming to hear His message of the kingdom.  The answer to that prayer comes immediately in chapter 10.

21-      We have studied this passage.  God’s answer was to have the twelve permanent rank disciples promoted to the temporary rank of apostle.  The investiture and commission of these twelve is the subject of chapter 10.

22-      This gives Judas the power and authority he desired and he envisioned the quick fulfillment of the kingdom promise with himself as head of Treasury.

23-      Judas was enchanted with Jesus as the political savior of Israel rather than the anointed Savior of men’s souls and eagerly carried the message of the kingdom to the multitudes.

24-      However, Judas’s attitude eventually changed.  The transformation occurred following the feeding of the five thousand, the only miracle found in all four of the Gospels.

25-      Let’s note the Apostle John’s account in John 6 where we will do a brief synopsis of this miracle:

1)        The location is near the city of Bethsaida /Beth-SAY-e-da / on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee.

2)        The Lord’s miracles have so attracted the masses that they follow Him to this remote location.

3)        The date is near Passover, a.d. 28, some two years since the apostles were commissioned.

4)        The Lord observed the large crowd of people and quizzed Philip, a resident of Bethsaida, where they could buy enough food for them all.

5)        Philip’s answer was that they didn’t have enough money to pay for it even if there was a source, indicating he sought a solution from the devil’s world and thus came to a conclusion from human viewpoint.

6)        Andrew polled the crowd and reported back that their entire inventory was five barley loves and two fish.

7)        The Lord had the crowd sit down and he separated them into groups of hundreds and of fifties.

8)        At this point the Lord begins to divide and multiply.  The Synoptic Gospels indicate that He broke the bread and handed the pieces to the apostles to distribute and also the fish.

9)        All were fed, all were satisfied, and there were twelve baskets of leftovers when they were done.

10)     The miracle was not intended to focus on the gift but the Giver.  The bread represented the impeccable body of the Messiah’s true humanity that will be broken for all on the cross, One Savior Who provides the bread of life for any who will accept it.  The masses missed the message but understood the gift: free food.

11)     The miracle was so impressive that the people present universally concluded that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.

12)     However, their intent was not to follow Him to the cross but rather to seize Him, take Him to Jerusalem, and proclaim Him King of the Jews.

John 6:14 - When therefore the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is of a truth the Prophet who is to come into the world.”

v. 15 -  Jesus therefore perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force, to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.

           13)     The impact of what happened here is summarized by:

Walvoord, John F. and Roy B. Zuck (eds.)  The Bible Knowledge Commentary: New Testament Edition.  (Wheaton: Victor Books, 1983), 294:

Seeing this miraculous sign, the people recalled Moses’ prediction that a Prophet like him would arise (Deut. 18:15).  Moses had fed the people.  Moses had led them out of bondage.  Jesus had fed the people.  Jesus could lead the people out of the hated Roman bondage.

The people saw this sign and they did not perceive its meaning.  They wanted to seize Him and make Him King.  This marks the highpoint of Jesus’ popularity and a great temptation for Him.  Could He have the kingdom without the cross?  No.  Jesus’ kingdom would be given to Him by the Father.  It will not come from this world.  The path of the Father’s will lies in another direction.  Before He can be the reigning Lion of Judah, He must be the Lamb who bears the sin of the world.

26-      Judas Iscariot was in agreement with the masses.  He was convinced that Jesus was King of the Jews, the Messiah of Israel, and the Deliverer of the nation from Roman slavery.

27-      However, Judas fully expected the Lord, in response to the great public adoration, to proclaim Himself King of Israel and then set-up the kingdom that Judas and his fellow apostles had spent two years proclaiming.

28-      But instead, the Lord sent the people away, withdrew from the area, and went up on the mountain alone to pray.

29-      This is the point that Judas began to turn against the Lord.  He and the other disciples returned that night to Capernaum leaving Jesus on the mountain.  But en route back to Capernaum Jesus walked across the Sea of Galilee and joined them in the boat.

30-      The next day, the masses came over to Capernaum looking for the Lord demanding more miracles which meant more free food.  Always gracious, the Lord began to explain to the people the significance of the previous day’s miracle.

31-      Its purpose was not an ongoing daily provision of free bread for the body but a once and for all imputation of eternal life by eating the bread of life through faith in Jesus for salvation from sin.

John 6:33 - “For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.”

32-      The people were ecstatic, “Yes!  This is the bread we want.  Gimme, gimme, gimme!”  But the Lord continued with the explanation that He was the bread of life sent down from heaven by God.  With this the people began to grumble and imply that the Lord was not truly God but Mary and Joseph’s Son.  With this the Lord intensified His illustration of the bread:

John 6:48 - “I am the bread of life.

v. 49 -  “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died.

v. 50 -  “This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.

v. 51 -  “I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread also which I shall give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

           33-      At this point the protests become loud and angry:

John 6:52 - The Jews therefore began to argue with one another saying, “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”

v. 53 -  Jesus therefore said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.”

34-      With this the people who the day before were ready to make Jesus King of the Jews stand in utter amazement at His insistence that they eat His flesh and drink His blood.  Even the disciples were grumbling among themselves:

John 6:61 - But Jesus, conscious that His disciples grumbled at this, said to them, “Does this cause you to stumble?

v. 62 -  “What then if you should behold the Son of Man ascending where He was before?”

35-      Implication: If I ascend into heaven you cannot literally eat My flesh and drink My blood, can you?

John 6:63 - “It is the Holy Spirit who gives eternal life; the flesh does not profit from this.  The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.

36-      These disciples did not understand the message because they are carnal and have their eyes not on the mission of the Messiah but on their own personal desire to have a political deliverance, not a spiritual deliverance.

37-        This constitutes not unbelief in Jesus as Messiah but an unbelief based on carnal status.  Those who are carnal cannot understand spiritual phenomena. 

38-      This is why the Lord didn’t debate these people.  He just fired out truth to which the disciples would respond resulting in rebound or reject resulting in prolonged carnality.

John 6:64 - “But there are some of you who do not believe.”  For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him.

39-      The word “betray” is the future active participle of the verb:

parad…dwmi / paradidomi / - “To betray; to hand over a person into the custody of another.”        The noun form of the verb is paradÒthj / paradotes / and is translated “traitor.”

40-      The dictionaries and lexicons add pertinent information for our context:

W. E. Vine.  An Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words.  (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers,1984), 114:

… to deliver over treacherously by way of betrayal.

Ceslas Spicq.  Theological Lexicon of the New Testament. Vol. 3:  Translated by James D. Ernest.  (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1994), 21-22:

Judas Iscariot was always called “traitor,” the one who betrayed Jesus.  The verb often connotes this nuance of criminality: desertion to another camp, breach of sworn faith, betrayal of someone’s trust.

41-   The designation of Judas as a betrayer and a traitor of the Lord is another indication of his salvation.  A person can only betray those to whom he was once loyal.  A traitor cannot be disloyal to his enemy.  The actions of a soldier against the army of the enemy are not those of a traitor.  He may be classified as an infiltrator, a spy, or a mole, but not a traitor to his country.  The British did not hang Nathan Hale because he was a traitor to England but because he was a spy for the Colonials.  When Benedict Arnold betrayed the Continental Army he was not classified by the Colonials as a spy but as a traitor.  We therefore regard Nathan Hale as a national hero and Benedict Arnold as a dastardly villain.

Nathan Hale was not involved in treason but Benedict Arnold was.  Both were members of the Continental Army.  At one time both were loyal.  Nathan Hale remained loyal and at his execution only regretted that he had but one life to lose for his country.  Benedict Arnold became disloyal and, after his betrayal was discovered, deserted to the other side. 

42-      Consequently, we may consider the betrayal of the Lord by Judas Iscariot as further documentation that he believed Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God, but because of prolonged carnality and advanced reversionism became a turncoat, a conspirator, and a traitor and thus betrayed his own Savior.

John 6:66 - As a result of this [ the Lord’s dissertation on his body and blood to be eaten and drunk ] many of His disciples [ among the multitudes ] withdrew, and were not walking with Him anymore.

43-      The masses did not understand the spiritual aspects of the Lord’s message and as a result became confused and frustrated.  They wanted to hear about the kingdom and what the Lord was going to do about those damn Romans, not some incoherent ramblings and gross mumbo jumbo about eating his body and drinking his blood.  Angry and disgruntled, the masses meandered off; most going down to Jerusalem to slaughter yet another lamb and participate in another meaningless Passover.

John 6:67 - Jesus said therefore to the twelve, “You do not want to go away also do you?”

v. 68 -  Simon Peter answered Him, “Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have words of eternal life.

v. 69 -  “And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

44-      In verse 68, Peter makes it clear that all twelve disciples remain loyal to Him and therefore have nowhere else to go.  Further, in verse 69, Peter also affirms that all twelve have believed that Jesus is the “Holy One of God,” to which in:

John 6:70 - Jesus answered him, “Did I not Myself choose [ ™klšgw / eklego /: the verb for election to privilege ] you, the twelve, and yet one of you is a devil [ di£boloj / diabolos /: adversary ]?”

v. 71 -  Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

45-      Only believers are chosen by Jesus Christ and only believers can be witnesses in Satan’s appeal trial.   However, believers can also betray the Lord and become witness for the defense in concert with Satan.

46-      In 2 Timothy, the Apostle Paul explains to Timothy that believers in his church can become traitors to God:

2 Timothy 2:24 - The pastor-teacher must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,

v. 25 -  with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

v. 26 -  and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

47-      The “snare of the devil” is perpetual carnality brought about by a chronic sin that is not confessed.  Constantly out of fellowship, the believer becomes an easy target for the lust patterns of his sinful nature, the temptations of the world, and the degrading influence on his soul by the doctrines of demons.

48-      As this believer continues to spiral away from the spiritual life the more he becomes proficient in the arrogant skills.  This leads to advanced reversionism and intensified bitterness. 

49-      The believer thinks and acts under the influence of satanic manipulation.  Judas Iscariot is a perfect example of a believer who entered into perpetual carnality, did not recover even when graciously invited, and proceeded to allow Satan to enter into his soul with cosmic viewpoint.  A character sketch of all reversionistic believers, including Judas Iscariot is the subject of the first paragraph of 2 Timothy 3.

2 Timothy 3:1 - Now you must know this doctrine, that in the last days [ at the end of the Church Age or the Tribulation; or before the destruction of a nation under the fifth cycle of discipline; or the sin unto death for an individual believer ] hard times [ disaster as a result of rejection of God ] will be imminent.

v. 2 - For believers [ who reject rebound and are in perpetual carnality ] will be lovers of self, lovers of money [ monetary reversionism ], boastful, arrogant, slanderers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked,

v. 3 - unloving [ no reciprocal love motivation toward God or impersonal love for all mankind ], implacable [ as a result of bitterness ], malicious adversary [ di£boloj / diabolos /: “devil”: adversary; witness for the defense in the appeal trial of Satan ], without self-control, brutal, haters of good,

v. 4 - resulting in behavior that is treacherous, thoughtless, conceited; lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,

v. 5 - holding to an external, superficial form of the spiritual life but having denied its power.  Consequently, avoid such persons as these [ reversionistic believers ].

50-      It must be remembered that “Devil” is not a proper name of the ruler of this world.  His real name is Lucifer.  However, he is also known by the terms, Devil and Satan.

51-      But these are not names but titles.  The word di£boloj / diabolos / means adversary; in the legal context it refers to one who opposes in a courtroom.  Lucifer opposes Jesus Christ as his own defense attorney in his appeal trial.

52-      The word Satan©j / Satanas / is taken from the Hebrew noun, /fc / Satan /.  It is synonymous with diabolos.

53-      Lucifer is an adversary to Jesus Christ.  As a result he was given legal titles to describe his function in the appeal trial.  Consequently, any who oppose Jesus Christ qualify to receive this appellation to describe them.  Therefore, Judas Iscariot was an adversary of Jesus Christ and as a result is a devil: diabolos, just like the reversionistic believers in Timothy’s church.

54-      Where for Lucifer, diabolos or “devil” is a title, for Judas Iscariot it is an antonomasia: a figure of speech that applies a famous name to a person alleged to share some quality associated with it.  That common quality is adversary.

55-      And how did Judas acquire this common quality with Lucifer? Prolonged carnality without rebound results in the development of the three arrogant skills which eventually give mental assent to demon influence.

56-      We now need to distinguish between demon influence and demon possession.

G.      Demon Influence & Demon Possession:

1-        Demon possession is the demonic invasion of the body of an unbeliever only.

2-        By contrast, demon influence is the demonic invasion of the believer’s soul with satanic thought.

3-        This is the “the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will” referred to in 2 Timothy 2:26.  It does not relate to the body but to the soul.

4-        Because of monetary lust, Judas was vulnerable.  Because of his lust for high position in the kingdom he was attracted to the Lord.  Because the Lord disappointed him, Judas entered into Crusader arrogance which led him to later cut a deal with the Sanhedrin.

5-        This inversion was manipulated by Satan who held Judas captive in his thinking through the doctrines of demons.

1 Timothy 4:1 - The Holy Spirit explicitly says that in the later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits [ in this case Lucifer himself ] and doctrines of demons [ demon influence ].

6-        Demon influence is the invasion of the stream of consciousness but the believer’s body can never be possessed by a demon because of the ministries of the Holy Spirit.

7-        We have learned from Matthew 10:20 that all the disciples had the enduement of the Holy Spirit including Judas and believers of every dispensation are impervious to demon possession.

8-        But any believer can fall under the control of demons, and in the case of Judas, Lucifer himself, when he resides too long in the cosmic system.

9-        In John 6:70, the Lord identifies Judas as already under the influence of Satan’s influence and thus called Judas, “a devil.”

10-      The Lord does not infer that Judas is Satan possessed but rather he calls him “a devil”: di£boloj / diabolos /: “an adversary.”

11-      Peter was at one point under satanic influence.  Peter rebuked the Lord following the events on the Transfiguration when Jesus spoke of His death:

Matthew 16:21 - From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

v. 22 -  And Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “God forbid it, Lord!  This shall never happen to You.”

v. 23 -  But Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan!  You are a stumbling block to Me; for you are not setting your mind on God’s interests but man’s interests.”

12-      Peter wanted to stop the Lord from going to the cross.  He wanted Him to set up the kingdom immediately.  Peter wanted the Lord to rule Israel and deliver it from Roman control.  So did Judas Iscariot!

13-      But!  No one considers from this passage that Peter was Satan possessed.  The Lord called Judas “an adversary.”  Here the Lord calls Peter an adversary as well but he uses the title Satan©j / Satanas / rather than di£boloj / diabolos /.  Same thing!

14-      Peter rebounded.  Judas did not.  As a result, Judas continues his slide into reversion and toward the sin unto death.

H.      Judas’s & the Three Arrogant Skills:

1-        Judas Iscariot, motivated by monetary lust had a trend to acquire money and to steal it if necessary.  We learned this from the passage in which Mary anointed the feet of the Lord with very expensive perfume.  Judas was upset about this but hid the reason why behind a rhetorical veil:

John 12:4 - Judas Iscariot, one of the disciples, who was intending to betray Him said,

v. 5 -    “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii, and given to the poor?”

v. 6 -    Now he said this, not because he was concerned about the poor, but because he was a thief, and as he had the money box, he used to pilfer what was put into it.

2-        One of Satan’s major tactics to disguise his duplicity and deceit is the use of a rhetorical veil to conceal while he advances his hidden agenda.

3-        Judas’s rhetorical veil was to take the perfume, sell it, and give the money to the poor.  His hidden agenda was to steal the money for himself.

4-        This chronic sin made him vulnerable to human viewpoint and evil that expressed itself in the three arrogant skills.

5-        Judas believed that Jesus was the Messiah and was pleased to join the Lord’s ministry because he was convinced that the kingdom reign would be set up immediately.

6-        When it became apparent that the Lord did not intend to do this, Judas became bitter.  He reacted along with the other disciples who also expected to be set free from Rome by following Jesus.

John 6:70 - Jesus answered them, “Did I Myself not choose you, the twelve, and yet one of you is an adversary?”

v. 71 -  Now He meant Judas the son of Simon Iscariot, for he, one of the twelve, was going to betray Him.

7-        Judas nurtured a jealous attitude toward the Roman Empire that he believed held an unjust advantage over the Jewish people.  This developed into an implacable bitterness toward Rome.  The system was wrong and Messiah Jesus would set things right.

8-        This resulted in self-deception as Judas became convinced that Jesus was in the process of setting up His kingdom immediately.

9-        Both monetary lust and crusader arrogance drove Judas into self-absorption.  He became convinced he would play a major role in making things right by aligning himself with the Lord and as a reward would be appointed Secretary of Treasury in the millennial government.

10-      This was a house of cards because it was not based on doctrine but human viewpoint and personal aggrandizement.  The house tumbled when it became apparent to Judas that the Lord was not going to set up the kingdom but rather submit to what he believed to be a martyr complex.  This further angered Judas.

Matthew 20:17 - As Jesus was about to go up to Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside by themselves and on the way He said to them,

v. 18 -  “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem; and the Son of Man will be delivered [ parad…dwmi / paradidomi /: betrayed ] to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death,

v. 19 -  and will deliver Him to the Gentiles to mock and scourge and crucify Him, and on the third day He will be raised up.”

11-      This announcement by Jesus that He would not pursue the kingdom but rather submit to a martyr’s death enraged Judas and he entered into intensified bitterness which reverses the cycle of the three arrogant skills.

12-      Judas’s self-absorption now directs his bitterness toward the Lord Jesus Christ who has disappointed him, let him down, failed him.  This bitterness involves disenchantment with the One on whom Judas depended to bring about the political solution he had so fervently supported.

13-      Driven by self-deception, Judas believed he could put this plan back on track by forcing the Lord to challenge the establishment authorities of Jerusalem and subsequently Rome.  This opportunity was about to present itself.

Matthew 26:3 - Then the chief priests and the elders of the people were gathered together in the court of the high priest, named Caiaphas;

v. 4 -    and they plotted together to seize Jesus by stealth, and kill Him.

v. 5 -    But they were saying, “Not during the festival, lest a riot occur among the people.”

14-      The reason the Jewish authorities wanted to “seize Jesus by stealth” was because they feared His popularity among the people would cause a riot if they arrested him in a public place.  They wanted to find a way to arrest him outside Jerusalem and with fewer people in town.  To do this they knew they would have to wait until after Passover.  What happened next changed their minds:

Luke 22:1 - Now the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching.

Like 22:2  - And the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put Jesus to death; for they were afraid of the people.

v. 3 -    And Satan entered into Judas who was called Iscariot, belonging to the number of the twelve.

15-      Here the word “Satan” does refer to the ruler of this world.  In the English translation it appears that Judas has now become Satan possessed.  But has he?

16-      Demon possession of an unbeliever occurs when over a period of time the person is fully indoctrinated by means of demon influence and it happens instantly.

17-      Demon influence and in Judas’s case, Satan influence, occurred gradually as he moved through the reverse order of the three arrogant skills.  It is here that we find Satan’s manipulation beginning to take over control of Judas’s soul.

18-      In the phrase, “Satan entered into Judas,” the preposition “into” is e„j / eis / and denotes motion toward an object with the purpose of reaching, touching, or influencing it.

19-      Judas kept giving mental assent to Satan and Satan was taking full advantage of it.  Here we see the Adversary-in-chief motivate his adversary-de-camp to meet with the Sanhedrin to plot the betrayal of the Lord.

Luke 22:4 - And Judas went away and discussed with the chief priests and officers how he might betray Jesus to them.

v. 5 - And they were glad and agreed to give Judas money [ 30 pieces of silver, cp., Matthew 26:15 ].

v. 6 - And he consented, and began seeking a good opportunity to betray Jesus to them apart from the multitude.

20-      Lucifer’s absorption of Judas’s soul continues as the evening wears on.  After cutting his deal with the Sanhedrin, Judas joins the Lord and his fellow apostles at the home of John Mark for the last Passover.  Here we discover that Satan is gaining a steady progression of influence over Judas.

John 13:2 - And during supper, the devil, having already put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon to betray Him …

21-      This verse indicates that Judas is locked into the deed that he contracted with the Jewish authorities to perform.  It does not say that the devil possessed Judas but that he “put into his heart to betray Jesus.”

22-      Judas is now back at self-justification under intensified bitterness.  He has sold out the Lord and intends to carry forward his plan.

23-      His believes if he can force a confrontation between the Lord and the Jewish and Roman establishment in Jerusalem that Jesus will be forced to go on the offensive.

24-      The “devil” has put this into his “heart,” that is, Judas’s stream of consciousness.  Satanic viewpoint now controls his soul.

25-      However, at no point does the Lord react to what he knows is taking place.  Instead He responds by offering Judas an opportunity to rebound.

I.        Judas’s Dirty Feet, Dastardly Deed, & Diabolical Demise:

1-        Jesus performs a service for his apostles that is always performed by a slave of the household.  In the middle of the meal, he gets up, pours some water into a bowl, grabs a towel, and begins to wash their feet.

2-        We don’t have time to go into the details of this now, so a brief synopsis must suffice:

In the ancient world baths were, except for the wealthy, only available at public facilities.  On return home, one’s feet would become dirty by walking along the streets of Jerusalem.  Upon arrival the household servant would wash the homeowner’s feet before he entered the house.

The Lord’s illustration was designed to teach rebound.  If a person is saved he has been “bathed.”  Therefore, as he continues his daily walk his feet will get dirty, an illustration of the occasions when the believer sins.  Such a person does not loose his salvation.  This would require another “bath.”  All this person needs to do is “wash” his feet in order to be “completely cleansed.”  Washing the feet is an illustration of rebound: confession alone to God alone.

John 13:10 -     Jesus said to him, “He who has fully bathed [ perfect passive participle of loÚw / louo /: regeneration ] only needs to wash his feet [ n…ptw / nipto /: rebound ] in order to be completely cleansed [ kaqarÒj / katharos /: purify; see 1 John 1:9 ].  Several of you are cleansed [ current on rebound ], but not every one of you [ Judas Iscariot needed to rebound ].

3-        Judas’s sin was one of betrayal after an extended period in prolonged carnality which led him to continual carnality, advanced reversionism, and the reverse order of the three arrogant skills.

4-      These are all conditions into which any one of us may enter and thus become a latter-day Judas Iscariot.  Believers fall into this type of betrayal every day.  Lack of doctrine leads to over emphasis on self and entrance into the arrogant skills.

5-        Recovery is through rebound.  But rejection of rebound leads to the ultimate form of blasphemy and that is to become an enemy of the cross of Christ.  This is the point at which Judas has arrived.  He rejected the option of rebound and remained riveted on his objective.

6-        Jesus, recognizing this, makes it known that He will be betrayed by one of His apostles.  But the Lord, in grace, still does not identify Judas as His adversary.

John 13:21 - “Truly, truly, I say to you, that one of you will betray Me.”

7-        Jesus, then takes a matzo, dips it into the bitter herbs, and as was the custom, hands it first to Judas, who was seated at the Passover table in the guest of honor’s position which was to the Lord’s immediate left.

John 13:27 -     And after the matzo, Satan then entered into Judas.  Jesus therefore, said to him, “What you have to do, do quickly.”

8-        Again we have the phrase “Satan entered into Judas.”  This is basically the very same phrase as was found in Luke 22:3.  But there is a critical difference between the two.

9-        In John 13:27 there is a word in the Greek that does not appear in Luke 22:3.  It is the adverb of time, tÒte / tote /: “at that time; then; at that point in time.”  Its importance is elaborated on by:

Bullinger, E. W. (ed.).  The Companion Bible.  (Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications, 1922), 1554n:

The word tote, then, [marks] the point of time.  It is significant that the rejection of the Lord’s last appeal hardened Judas, so that his heart became open to the entrance of Satan.  Up to this moment, Judas had been possessed by the evil thought, now he is obsessed by the evil one.

The Lord knew what had taken place, and that further appeal was useless.  He dismisses him to the work he is set upon.

10-      The word “entered” is the aorist active indicative of the verb, e„sšrcomai / eiserchomai /.  It has five meanings: (1) The entrance of a chorus in a drama.  (2) An economic term for the movement of money.  (3) To enter into an office.  (4) Entry into something or someone.  (5) Figurative for a desire coming upon a person.

11-      Our study has given us the context by which we can eliminate an entry into a person, i.e., demon possession.  The word that is used most in the New Testament for demon possession is daimon…zomai / daimonizomai /: to be possessed by a demon.

12-      Judas was possessed by a desire to execute Satan’s plan rather than God’s.  Satan had taken over Judas’s soul under the principle of demon influence.

John 13:27b -   Jesus therefore said to him, “What you do, do quickly.”

13-      What Judas did he carried out within the hour.  Following the institution of the Eucharist and His High Priestly prayer, the Lord and His apostles retired to the Garden of Gethsemane.

14-      This was customary for the Lord to seek solitude there but on this occasion He knew that His hour had come and that His betrayal and arrest were imminent.

John 18:1 - When Jesus had spoken these words He went forth with His disciples over the ravine of the Kidron, where there was a garden, into which He Himself entered, and His disciples.

v. 2 - Now Judas also, who was betraying Him, knew the place; for Jesus had often met there with His disciples.

15-      Following His three famous prayers in the Garden, the Lord prepared for His arrest.

Matthew 26:45 - Then He came to the disciples and said to them, “Behold the hour is at hand and the Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners.

v. 46 -  “Arise, let us be going; behold, the one who betrays Me is at hand!”

v. 47 -  And while He was still speaking, behold, Judas, one of the twelve, came up, accompanied by a great multitude with swords and clubs, from the chief priests and elders of the people.

v. 48 -  Now he who was betraying Him gave them a sign, saying, “Whomever I shall kiss, He is the one; seize Him.”

v. 49 -  And immediately he went to Jesus and said, “Hail, Rabbi!” and kissed Him.

v. 50 -  And Jesus said to him, “Friend do what you have come for.”  Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and seized Him.

           16-      This fulfilled the prophecy written by David in:

Psalm 41:9 - Even my close friend, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.”

17-      Judas, like Paul, kicked the goads of grace offered to him constantly by the Lord.  And even as Judas was betraying the Lord, Jesus called him friend.

18-      Nevertheless, Judas had entered into terminal discipline.  Having rejected the love of God and Christ by refusing to rebound, he was shocked to discover that his scheme backfired.  Jesus made no move to resist arrest or to defend Himself in the trials that followed.  Instead he submitted willingly to the plan of salvation agreed upon in eternity past.  And Judas entered into emotional revolt.

Matthew 27:3 - Then when Judas, who had betrayed Him, saw that Jesus had been condemned, he felt remorse and returned the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

v. 4 - saying, “I have sinned by betraying innocent blood.”  But they said, “What is that to us?  See to that yourself!”

v. 5 - And Judas threw the pieces of silver into the sanctuary and departed; and he went away and hanged himself.

19-      The dénouement of our tragedy is found in Acts 1 where Peter gives his speech promoting Matthias as Judas’s replacement on the promotion list of permanent rank apostles:

Acts 1:16 - “Brethren, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus.

v. 17 -  “For he was counted among us, and received his portion in this ministry.”

v. 18 -  [ Luke provides additional information ] (Now this man acquired a field with the price of his wickedness; and falling headlong, he burst open in the middle and all his bowels gushed out.)

20-      There is debate about how Judas died the sin unto death.  Luke writes in Acts 1:18 that he fell to his death.  Matthew tells us he was hung.  Both are right.  Judas was so emotionally wrought that he botched his own suicide.  He did try to hang himself but the rope apparently broke, and he was hurled to his death, disemboweled by the jagged rocks below.

Acts 1:20 - “For it is written in the book of Psalms … [ 109:8 ] ‘His office let another man take.’

21-      Peter held a bogus election to fill the vacancy left by Judas who was obviously on the promotion list for permanent rank apostle: “His office let another man take.”  Another would indeed take Judas’s slot but it would not be Peter’s candidate and the apostles’ choice of Matthias.

22-      The Lord elects His won apostles.  To qualify each must have seen Him in resurrection body.  He selected His own half brother, James, to replace Judas Iscariot and Paul was chosen to replace Matthias.  Paul himself gives us the final roster of the thirteen permanent rank apostles in:

1 Corinthians 15:5 - Jesus appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

v. 7 - Then He appeared to James then to all the apostles;

v. 8 - and last of all, as it were to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

23-      These thirteen men were also commissioned with the temporary rank of apostleship which authorized many of them to be the human authors of the New Testament canon.

24-      Judas Iscariot lost his title, rank, power, and authority.  He lost his apostleship and opportunity to move into the Church Age and royal family.  As a result he lost out on the opportunity for escrow blessing in time and eternity.  He also lost out on the privilege of sitting on one of the twelve thrones to be occupied by the apostles in the Millennium.

Matthew 19:28 - Jesus said to the apostles, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

25-      Judas wanted a position of importance in the kingdom.  He lusted for Secretary of Treasury and forfeited a throne for what amounted to fifty bucks.

26-      Judas engaged in a horrid series of astonishingly bad decisions that led him to a disgusting death and a legacy so despicable that he is assumed by most theologians to have been an unbeliever.

27-      He was not.  He was a warning to us who have tendencies to entertain favorite sins.  When we live in prolonged carnality and neglect rebound we fill our days with misery and gradually take on the persona of a Judas.

28-      The Lord continuously offered Judas Iscariot grace opportunities to recover and on all occasions showed him deference by concealing his identity from his fellow apostles.  The very same grace system available to Judas is available to us: confession alone to God alone.

29-      And we should also remember that Jesus Christ was betrayed by his own friend whom he trusted and who ate His bread.  The Lord’s undiminished love was demonstrated to the maximum when in Gethsemane at the moment of His betrayal he still called Judas friend.

30-      What was true for Judas Iscariot is even a greater truth for those who are positive to the Word of God and motivated for the advance by reciprocal love motivation.  We are the friends of the Lord Jesus Christ:

John 15:12 - “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

v. 13 -  “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.

v. 14 -  “You are My friends, if you do what I command you.”

Romans 5:8 -   God demonstrated His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died as a substitute for us.

Judgment Seat of Christ

The Judgment Seat of Christ   RD/Gal/066

1.       We need to distinguish between the judgment seat of Christ and the great white throne judgment described in Revelation 20. The great white throne judgment takes place at the end of the Millennium. Its purpose is condemnation of unbelievers only. The purpose of the judgment seat of Christ is to evaluate what believers have done with what their life on earth.

2.       Scripture: 2 Corinthians 5:10. There is accountability, not for sin but for lost opportunities and failure to advance in the spiritual life. Here we have the word BEMA [bhma], a technical term. This was a raised dais that was set up in the public square and the moderator of the assembly in Athens executed judgment. It was the place where law suits would be settled, where criminals would be tried, and it is the place of evaluation and judgment. “We must all,” i.e. every single believer, “appear.” It is required; “that each one may be recompensed”—this is the aorist middle subjunctive of KOMIZO [komizw]. The word’s basic meaning is to receive something. Here we are going to receive either reward or a loss of reward. An aorist subjunctive plus i(na indicates purpose, and so there is a purpose in our appearing before the judgment seat of Christ. The subjunctive mood indicates potential and reward is dependent upon how the believer exercises his volition while he is alive on earth. The word here for deeds is not ERGON [e)rgon], instead there is an article used as a relative pronoun meaning “what,” and then the aorist active indicative of PRASSO [prassw]. So the aorist tense bundles up all of the acts that we have done on earth and looks at them as one act. This is an active voice, which emphasizes the things that we did from our volition. The indicative indicates the mood of reality. The reward is for people who have endured in the struggle; “that each one might receive for what he practiced in the body.” (Think of what is said in Galatians 5:21—“that those who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” Lifestyle is what is in view here) “ … for what he has done, whether good or bad.” The word for “good” here is AGATHOS [a)gaqoj] and means intrinsic good and refers to divine good, that which is produced under the power of God the Holy Spirit. The word for “bad” is PHAULOS [fauloj] which means evil, worthless, bad, slight, trivial or common. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15. What are you constructing on the foundation of the gospel? Paul warns that we should be careful and need to pay attention to what we construct upon that foundation. There are various materials one can use to construct his life. There are two groups, those which have eternal value and that which have temporal value. They are listed as gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, and straw. The point here is that there are different kinds of human good, different kinds of divine good from which the believer is going to construct, and the whole edifice is a mix of these things. This edifice is the mix which is our life. Then Paul says, “each man’s work will become evident.” The only time this is going to be made manifest is at the judgment seat of Christ. In the mix is gold, silver and jewels, and a lot of garbage, so the only way to find out what is there of value is to set the whole thing on fire. What is evaluated and left on the foundation—the word here is DOKIMAZO [dokimazw] which means to evaluate something for the purpose of praise, not for the purpose of condemnation—is what is going to be rewarded; “if any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss.” He is not going to lose his salvation. He loses what was built above the foundation but he still has the foundation which is Jesus Christ—“but he himself shall be saved, yet as through fire.” This is the person who receives nothing, there is no inheritance of the kingdom. There is inheritance of eternal life but not inheritance of the kingdom. Cf. 1 John 2:28—“And now little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away in shame at His coming.”  

            2 Timothy 2:11-13—what is the context, the flow of the author’s reasoning? What is Paul telling Timothy to do? Timothy is a pastor and Paul is encouraging him to hang in there through tough times as a pastor-teacher. He is to be “strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.” He has to understand grace orientation; “these things [the doctrine he has been teaching] entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” So here Paul is relating specifically that part of the responsibility of a pastor is to make sure he is communicating doctrine to specific men who will in turn be able to communicate that doctrine to other men. This is the concept of teaching within a local congregation. Within that congregation there will be men who have the gift of pastor-teacher and it is the responsibility of the pastor-teacher to teach in such a way that those men as well are being matured so that they can go and do likewise. The basic command is to continue to be strong in grace. As he develops that he gives three illustrations, beginning in verse 3: “Suffer hardship with me, as a good soldier in Christ Jesus.” This is why one has to be grace oriented as a pastor when going through the various trials and testing in order to make it through because it is not as simple as some think it is. So the first image is of a soldier who is out in the field and going through difficult times. Verse 4 – the analogy of the soldier is further: not to be entangled in the things that would distract him from the ministry of teaching the Word of God. Verse 5 – the illustration of an athlete. “… if anyone competes as an athlete, he does not win the prize unless he competes according to the rules.” By interpretation these apply to Timothy but by application they apply to every believer. You have to suffer hardship as a believer. There are things as a believer you are not going to be able to do, that other believers who do not care about the spiritual life do and that unbelievers do, because you know it will distract you from the goal of spiritual growth. Secondly, there are rules in the spiritual life. One of the greatest dangers is antinomianism, taking grace for granted: because Christ died on the cross and paid for my sins so I can do just whatever I want to and it is not going to make a difference. It will make a difference! Paul says that if you don’t run like an athlete and follow the rules you will be disqualified—1 Corinthians 7. Even Paul realized the possibility of sin and failure in his life that would disqualify him from the reward. The third illustration is of a farmer: “The hard-working farmer ought to be the first to receive his share of the crops.” This brings in the idea of reward for the effort put forth. So we have in this passage the idea of endurance in difficult times, following the rules, and receiving reward for the effort put forth. In verses 7-10 Paul is simply encouraging Timothy to pay attention to what he has said, and relating his own example. In verse 10 he uses the word “salvation” SOTER [swthr] which means simply “deliverance,” so it is always necessary to look at the context to see what kind of deliverance is being spoken of. Here it is not phase one salvation; “for the sake of those who are chosen,” and he is using the word “elect” here as a synonym for those who are saved; “that they also may obtain salvation” – not phase one because they are already phase one, this is phase three, the culmination of the spiritual life when the believer is face to face with the Lord. He is using this to encompass the entire framework of God’s plan for their life. Then he is going to summarize this in verses 11-13 through the use of what appears to be a hymn that was commonly sung in the church at that time, and because this hymn accurately reflects the truth, the apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit includes this much of the hymn is Scripture in order to make the point.

            There are four conditional clauses listed here. In the parable in the minas in Luke 19 there were three servants involved. The nobleman went off to a far land to receive his kingdom. Before he left he called his servants and gave each a mina and we are told what happened to three of them. The first one is faithful and the one mina is turned into ten. The second one is faithful, he doesn’t receive verbal praise but he does receive rulership in the kingdom. He turns his one mina into five. And the last one because he is afraid of the accountability procedure he just hides the mina, doesn’t do anything with it; and that is comparable to the believer who does nothing with the assets of God’s grace, and so he is chastised and rebuked and his mina is taken away and given to the others. The third group of people in that parable which represents the unbelievers is put to death; the servants are not, even the unfaithful servant. The unfaithful servant is denied possession of what was given him. There is a denial of rewards.

            Verse 11 – “It is a trustworthy statement [a doctrinally true statement],” and it is derived from what is supposed as a popular song/hymn of that day. “For if we died with him [and we have], we shall also live with him.” This begins with a first class condition: if, and we assume it to be true. The main verb is SUNAPOTHNESKO [sunapoqnhskw] which has to do with a joint death’ “we shall also live with him” is in the future tense, which indicates a future life, phase three glorification. The baptism of the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation identifies the believer with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection—Romans 6:1-4. If we died with Him we will live with Him. This death is positional. We still possess a sin nature but it is no longer the undisputed master of our soul. The point of verse 11 is that if we died with Him positionally, and we have, once positional truth takes place it cannot be repeated and it cannot be lost. “We shall also live with him” is a promise.

            Stanza number two, verse 12: “If we endure, we shall also reign with him.” There again it is a first class condition because Paul is assuming that we endure. He is being optimistic. There we have the same idea that we saw in the parable of the minas, that the believer who is obedient and faithful has a position ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ. “If we endure” comes from the present active indicative of HUPOMENO [u(pomenw]. The present tense is continuous action in present time, emphasizing the importance of endurance in the spiritual life in phase two. Endurance is the key to going through the test—the test of hardship here. Application of doctrine is going to lead to maturity, capacity for blessing in time and eternity. “We shall also reign with him”—phase two is the training ground for the believer’s position as a ruler in the Millennial kingdom. If we do not pass the test during this time there is no ruling and reigning, there is no responsibility in phase three, because there is no capacity or ability to do that. The believer learns how to do it in phase two during this lifetime.

            Verse 13 – “If we are faithless [1st class condition: and some will be].” That means to be disobedient, to not trust the Lord, to not grow to spiritual maturity, to treat God’s grace in a light manner; “he remains faithful” – so while we might be unfaithful, disobedient, etc., He remains faithful because that is His character. He is immutable, the same today, yesterday and forever; “because he cannot deny himself.” He cannot change; He cannot go back on His word. So back to the last clause in verse 12: “If we deny him, he also will deny us.” Many have recanted the faith under persecution. Denial here speaks of rejecting Christ as saviour after one has accept Him as saviour. So He will deny us what? Deny us reward. This is not to deny us salvation because as we have already seen in verse 13, “If we are faithless, he remains faithful.”

            The result: 1 John 2:28—“And now little children, abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away in shame at His coming.”

            “Abide in him” is Johannine terminology for HUPOMENO, endurance. Hang in there, stay in fellowship, walk by means of the Holy Spirit. There will be many believers who have been given this incredible array of spiritual assets to live the spiritual life, but do not use them, who will be ashamed when Jesus Christ returns. There will be shame at the judgment seat of Christ because rather than hearing the Lord say, “Well done good and faithful servant,” there will be either nothing or hearing the Lord ask why we did what we did or failed to use what we were given, as he did with the unfaithful servant.

            The timing of our evaluation judgment is uncertain. Revelation 22:12—“Behold, I am coming quickly.” It could happen at any moment. It is the Greek word which means that when these things start happening everything will roll out very rapidly; “and my reward is with me to render to every man according to what he has done.” So there we see that rewards are based on merit, not on grace. Salvation is based on grace but reward is based on what you do with what God has graciously given you—all of the spiritual assets that God has graciously bestowed upon you. Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:10.

            In our society we look upon inheritance as that which when anybody dies whatever property they own is automatically transferred to his descendants. Primarily it has the idea of transference at death. The inheritance in the Bible primarily has the connotation of possession.

Judgment Seat of Christ

The judgment seat of Christ RD/2 John 010-011

1.       There are two words in Greek for judgment. They are usually translated judgment or condemnation but they are actually two Greek words that we must understand. The first is based on the Greek verb krino [krinw], and there are various forms of that word all related to judgment and condemnation. It primarily denotes the idea of separation and of judging or pronouncing judgment from a judicial authority. Sometimes it means to execute that judgment or to be involved in a court case. The second word used is based on the Greek word dokimazo [dokimazw]; the noun is dokimos [dokimoj]. This has the idea of evaluation. krino judgment is negative; dokimazo is positive, an evaluation not to show all the terrible things that you have done but to reveal what you have done that is right. What is going to happen in the analogy that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 3:12ff is the idea of evaluation. The imagery he uses is that all the product of our life is going to be piled up and set to the torch and only that which has eternal value—called gold, silver and precious stones—that is the production of the Holy Spirit, is going to survive those flames. What is revealed in the judgment is the gold, silver and precious stones, not the wood hay and straw.

2.        The evaluation at the judgment seat of Christ is determined on the basis of how well and how much the believer uses the ten stress-busters which are the spiritual skills necessary to advance to spiritual maturity. There are the basic stress-busters which relate to spiritual childhood. We master these to get out of childhood. The first is confession of sin at which point we are filled with the Holy Spirit so that we can walk by means of God the Holy Spirit. Then first thing we get to master is the faith-rest drill, which means we respond to the challenges of life by trusting in God and relaxing in His promises and provisions. We go from the faith-rest drill to grace orientation where we learn that everything we have in life is due to the grace of God, it is not based on who we are or what we have done but on  who God is and what Christ did on the cross. As we learn grace we begin to quit trying to impress God and impress others, and we just try to do our job as unto the Lord. Then we have doctrinal orientation where begin to learn the Word of God and orient out thinking to the Word of God. When we master these we get out of spiritual childhood and we go through spiritual adolescence and we begin to make decisions in light of eternity. We realise that every decision we make today determines what we will be for eternity. Then we get into what has been called the love triplex where we develop our personal love for God the Father, which is the motivation. Then impersonal love for all mankind and impersonal love for all believers and occupation with Christ. These three are distinct and develop together and then as a result of all of these things we have perfect happiness. When we are in fellowship we are walking inside the soul fortress and when any situation in live comes up we exercise our positive volition and we choose to handle the problem, the situation, whatever it is, simply by apply one or more of these principles to handle that problem. That is also described in Scripture as abiding in Christ. We are operating on the problem-solving devices and the more time we spend inside this soul fortress of problem-solving devices that protect us from the onslaughts of adversity there is no stress in the soul and we can have maximum happiness in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. As we use these skills we grow and we mature. As we mature God is going to distribute to us the blessings He has already set aside for us. This is the difference between legalism and grace. These blessings are contingent. There are contingency blessings for time and contingency blessings for eternity, and rewards are part of our contingency blessings for eternity. If we do not grow, and if we do not develop the capacity to handle those blessings, then they aren’t distributed. They will be on display as undistributed rewards throughout the Millennial kingdom and after the great white throne judgment they will then be destroyed in the lake of fire. Revelation 21:8 describes loser believers, i.e. those who are carnal and never live the spiritual life, and it says their part is in the lake of fire. The word “part” there doesn’t mean that they are in the lake of fire, it is the Greek word meros [meroj] which means a share or an inheritance. So that the inheritance of these carnal believers is going to be destroyed in the lake of fire at the same time as the great white throne judgment.   

3.       The present church age is going to terminate with the Rapture of the church. We don’t know when the Rapture is going to occur any more than we know when we are going to die, so we need to constantly live in terms of this Rapture event or in terms of our physical death. It could occur tonight or tomorrow, so the priority of each day needs to be: Am I living today in the light of eternity? Am I making decisions today in light of eternity, in light of the fact that I am going to appear at the bema [bhma] seat, and am I going to have anything to show in terms of spiritual value from my time here on earth? 

4.       Immediately following the Rapture we have the evaluation judgment. This is analogous to the bema seat that occurred after the Isthmian Games. At the end there was an award ceremony just like we have in our modern Olympics. This is what tales place after the Rapture.

5.       This evaluation is directly related to the believer’s utilisation of spiritual assets—how well we learn about the filling of the Holy Spirit, how well we learn about confession of sin, how well we learn about the promises of God so we can claim them in the faith-rest drill. We have all these blessings that God has given us (Ephesians 1:3) and they are ours. We don’t deserve them, we don’t  get them because we pray or give or go to church, or some other so-called spiritual activity after salvation. They are ours from the instant of salvation, 2 Peter 1:3 NASB “…His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness [e)usebeia, the spiritual life], through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” It is through “knowledge” that we grow.

6.       It is our performance, not salvation, that is the issue at the judgment seat of Christ. The successful believer, the believer who has learned these spiritual skills, who has mastered these spiritual skills, who has constantly taken in doctrine, letting the human viewpoint in His soul be relaced by the divine viewpoint, learning to think about life as God thinks about life; that believer is the one who advances and who will be rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ. So John says in verse 8 NASB “Watch yourselves, that you do not lose what we have accomplished…” The word there for “lose” is apollumi [a)pollumi] which is used three different ways in the New Testament. Its basic meaning is to destroy. It is used in an everyday context fro something that is destroyed or broken or useless. It is used frequently in salvation verses in reference to those who are lost eternally, those who will spend eternity in the lake of fire. It is a word that is used in John 3:16 for those who “perish.” It is used as a title for Judas Iscariot, for one who is the son of destruction, one who is lost, not saved. But here, as in 1 Corinthians 8:11 it is used for the destruction of the spiritual life, the life of the weaker brother that is destroyed. So it has simply the idea that these rewards are destroyed. The object of the verb in 2 John 8 is the object of the things we worked for; not people but things. These rewards are permanently lost because we have failed to advance to spiritual maturity.

7.       One thing is obvious as a result of this. That is that because of the judgment seat of Christ there is no equality in heaven among believers; there is going to be distinction among believers. There will be inequality because of lost opportunity on the earth under the fact that we all have equal privilege and equal opportunity to advance to spiritual maturity. Every single believer is given the same assets, the same Scripture, the same Holy Spirit; but what he does with that is going to determine what he is in eternity. This is a principle of freedom. Only in an environment of freedom can there be real success, and real freedom is going to result in inequality. Only where there is true freedom do people have the opportunity to succeed. You are only free to succeed to the degree that you are free to fail. There cannot be equality and freedom at the same time. Inequality will exist in heaven because people do different things in life.

8.       Inequality in the eternal state is the result of the neglect of freedom in time or the irresponsible use of freedom in time. The solution is not to legislate equality in the political realm or to blame freedom. The solution is always to teach and emphasise responsibility and it is the same in the spiritual life. We are to emphasise individual responsibility for the decisions we make, and the decisions we make in time will have an impact on eternity. Equalities: we will all have a resurrection body, a glorified body. We will all live in heaven, there will be no more sin nature, no more sorrows, the past will be completely wiped away when we get into eternity and we will not remember the events of time. In equalities: different privileges, different positions of responsibility, some will rule and reign with Jesus Christ and others will simply be in the kingdom. There will be a different level of happiness or capacity for happiness, different responsibilities, and different rewards. But everyone will be happy—some will be very happy, some extremely happy. Everyone will have a different capacity for eternal life. There will be different areas of access to heaven as well that will be determined by how well we do on earth.

9.       Regardless of the historical circumstances in which we live we have full spiritual freedom—the same assets and opportunity to grow to spiritual maturity and to have maximum rewards at the judgment seat of Christ.

10.   Freedom means inequality both in time and in eternity. People are free to succeed or free to fail spiritually; it all depends on how they want to exercise their volition. It depends on your decisions, your decisions, and your decisions. Your decisions determine what you will be in eternity.

11.   Believers who are constantly failing to execute the plan of God, who constantly use the problem-solving devices, who are constantly distracted by the cosmic system and who get caught up in all kinds of false systems of thinking that aren’t biblical, are those who are going to be the losers at the judgment seat of Christ. They are the ones who are going to be deceived because they have put their focus on temporal pleasures, on temporal gains, and have not lived their life today in light of eternity.  

Seven general characteristics of the judgment seat of Christ  RD/2 John 012

1.       2 Corinthians 5:10 NASB “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.” This is not salvation, this is talking about the judgment seat of Christ and about rewards for what we do in the body as believers during this life. It is at this time that we are going to be evaluation on the basis of our performance in the spiritual life during our time on earth. At the instant of salvation we are given everything we need for life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3; we don’t need anything else. We have the Holy Spirit and the Word of God and with the combination of these every believer has the opportunity to advance to spiritual maturity. The one thing that makes the difference is volition. You determine whether or not you reach spiritual maturity. It has to do with how you apply the Word of God on a day-to-day basis in your life. The believer who lives his life on the basis of divine viewpoint in the soul, applying the doctrine that he has learned, produces good—the Greek word agathos [a)gaqoj] which has to do with good of intrinsic value. This is what we call divine good to distinguish it from human good which is simple morality, it may involve charity, altruism and many different things. This is not meant to disparage many different kinds of functions that benefit society in a good way. The only difference between divine good and human good is that in divine good one is operating under the filling of the Holy Spirit. In human good one is operating according to the flesh in our area of strength, and this produces human good. The issue involved is the filling of the Spirit and the sin nature, not the activity itself. There is nothing wrong with getting involved with different events that benefit the community, the society as a whole, but it is not in and of itself good of intrinsic value. So we will be evaluated according to what we have done, whether good or worthless, phaulos [fauloj], which has to do with sin or human good, that which has no value. So we are either producing good which is divine good or we are producing human good or sin. The person who produces divine good has something that will be rewardable. A person who lives a life under the control of the sin nature and is producing sin and human good, and that is all he does, then that results in a loss of rewards. This passage indicates that the believer is accountable for his decisions, and this is covered by the word prasso [prassw]. It is more the concept of practice, what is done on a regular basis; what the person has practiced, not on what he has done, poieo [poiew]. The purpose of the judgment seat of Christ is to evaluate believers’ performance in life.

2.       The emphasis at the judgment seat of Christ is the development of Christian virtue or the character of Jesus Christ. We see this in Romans 14:1-13 NASB “But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written, “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.” So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God. Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way.” The problem here begins with arrogance and arrogance is the most destructive of all sins and the most subtle of all sins. Arrogance is the root of most sins of the tongue and it is the root of judging one’s brother. When you are putting yourself in a position of judging someone and condemning them negatively to cheapen them. There is a difference between discernment on making a value judgment decision about someone. There are many times we have to evaluate someone legitimately. There is going to subordination, submission and worship of God at the judgment seat of Christ and at that time each one of us will give account. Everything will be evaluated at the judgment seat of Christ and for those who have failed to advance in the spiritual life there will be shame and embarrassment. The issue isn’t salvation, the issue is our role and responsibilities in the kingdom.

3.       We are evaluated for bringing God’s plan for the spiritual life to completion in our own life. God’s plan is to conform us to the image, i.e. the character, of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to live inside that soul fortress made up of those ten stress-busters, the ten problem-solving devices. We have to learn to live inside that soul fortress, to spend maximum time there, and that means that with every adversity we don’t first try the human solution and then the divine solution, but we first try the divine solution—claim a promise, stay in fellowship, and keep on abiding inside that soul fortress. This is the principle of 1 John 2:28 NASB “Now, little children, abide in Him [stay there] so that when He appears, we may have confidence and not shrink away from Him in shame at His coming.” This is the same principle as James 1:25 NASB “But one who looks intently at the perfect law, the {law} of liberty, and abides by it, not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer [one who is consistently applying the Word], this man will be blessed in what he does.”

4.       Those who are successful will be rewarded at the judgment seat of Christ. Revelation 22:12 NASB “Behold, I am coming quickly, and My reward {is} with Me, to render to every man according to what he has done.”

5.       This means that at the judgment seat of Christ we can have confidence today. 1 John 4:17 NASB “By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.”

6.       In contrast to this, those who are failures will be ashamed at the judgment seat of Christ. There will be shame and misery for a time, a shameful feeling that is the result of being conscious and fully aware that we have done something dishonourable or wrong or sinful, and there will be a time of regret because we will see all of that lost opportunity, all of that time being concerned about things that had no real value, they were simply enjoyable or stimulating but had no long-term consequences. The failure believer will be filled with shame and sorrow. But in the eternal state every tear will be wiped away, there will be no more sorrow, no more pain, these things are passed away. In the meantime there are many believers today who are failures because they do not make doctrine the number one priority in their life.

7.       The loser believer, the believer who is a failure in the spiritual life, will lose rewards but he will not lose salvation. He will experience shame and misery at the judgment seat of Christ. That will be temporary, it will be wiped away after a while. 1 Corinthians 3:13-15 NASB “each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it because it is {to be} revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the quality of each man’s work. If any man’s work which he has built on it remains, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.” So the loser believer doesn’t lose his salvation, he loses his rewards, he loses everything that God would have blessed him with for eternity, he has sacrificed that just as Esau did by selling his birthright which was a position in the kingdom for a mess of pottage. He was more concerned with satisfying temporal appetites and sensual desires than living his life in light of eternity.

So John warns us not to become distracted by false doctrine, not to put at risk all that we have worked for in the spiritual life by becoming distracted by some kind of false doctrine, false systems of thought, or physical or emotional stimulation. Unfortunately this is what happens to many believers. There is the need to stick with it, which is why there is the emphasis in Scripture on endurance, staying with it no matter how tough it gets. 

Judgments of Christ, The Six Major

The Six Major Judgments that take place from the time of the cross  RD/2 John 010  

1.       The judgment of Jesus Christ on the cross for all of our personal sins. It was during that time that God the Father, operating as the supreme Judge of the universe, imputed every single sin in history to the impeccable Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ who was sinless (1 Peter 2:24) bore every single sin.

2.       The judgment of self, the judgment of the believer on himself to recover from sin and carnality. 1 Corinthians 11:28. Because our sins have already been judged on the cross all we need do is follow the procedure of 1 John 1:9.

3.       The judgment seat of Christ which is the evaluation of all church age believers. This takes place between the Rapture and the second coming in heaven during the time of the Tribulation on earth.

4.       The judgment of surviving Tribulation unbelieving Gentiles at the second coming.

5.       The judgment of fallen angels at the end of the Millennium. It is at this time that the sentence is applied. They were all judged and condemned in eternity past because of the fact that they followed Satan in rebellion against God, but the execution of that judgment is not applied until the end of the Millennium when they are assigned to the lake of fire.

6.       The second resurrection and judgment of all unbelievers takes place at the end of the Millennium at the great white throne judgment. They are all cast into the lake of fire.

King James Debate

The issue of the King James version debate

RD/1 John/077

“King James only” people are those who believe that the King James version is inerrant, that it is the only version that should be used, and that all of these modern translations are actually heretical, all wrong, and if you use them you’ll probably never learn any truth because only the KJV is true—and not only was the Greek text inspired but the KJV translators were inspired, so the KJV is the only authorised version that should be used. So we have to ask the question: Is there a legitimate stand for saying that the KJV is the only authorised version and that we should only use it? One place that we see this difference is that in most of the modern versions there is not included the extra text in these two verses. There is not the ending in Mark that is in the KJV, and there are some other verses that are in the KJV that are not in many modern translations. What causes this? Have the translators left some of the Bible out? Have they ignored some of the revelation of God? If so that is a serious claim.

1.       The KJV and the NKJV are based on a collection of Greek MSS called the Textus Receptus [TR]. That is the Latin for “received text.” The TR contains the second half of verse 7 and the first half of verse 8. King James only advocates claim that the modern versions are deliberately less Trinitarian. This is a great verse to support the Trinity: “the Father, the Word and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one.” The issue here is not an issue of the inspiration of the text, the issue has to do with the transmission and the copying of the text, not its origination.

2.        The TR refers to the 1633 version of the Greek text published by Erasmus. He published the first edition in 1516. Erasmus was a Roman Catholic priest and a humanist who desired to reform the Roman Catholic church at the same time as Martin Luther and the early reformers. However, he was not a believer and he really wanted a moral reformation of the church, not a theological reformation of the Roman Catholic church. Erasmus was not a great believer but he was a great linguist and a great student of MSS and ancient texts. But Erasmus had the problem a lot of modern writers have with publishers and that was to get the manuscript in so that it could be published. He had to come up with a Greek New Testament in seven months and he had to do it the old fashioned way writing on leather with a quill pen. He based his New Testament on only seven MSS that were available to him at the time. So the TR is based on seven Greek MSS, and that’s it. It has been described by scholars as being thrown together rather than edited. Of the seven MSS not one of them contained the entirety of the New Testament. Furthermore, all of these MSS dated from between the 11th century and the 15th century—from roughly 1050 AD up to about 1480 AD, about 1000 years after the New Testament was written. So these were very late MSS and a lot of errors had crept into them.

3.       Scholars note that by comparing these seven MSS with Erasmus’ final edition (there are still copies of that) and the one the printer published several inferences can be made. First, Erasmus primarily used two MSS and compared the others with these and wrote in his changes on those two primary MSS. The seven MSS differed in as many as six to ten times per chapter. They are not considered even today some of the better MSS. Furthermore, the publisher didn’t accept all of Erasmus’s corrections so the publisher went in and added some of his own. The result was that a number of major errors entered into that text that Erasmus edited. In fact, many words entered in that aren’t found in any Greek MSS anywhere. So we don’t know what they mean or where they came from.

4.       One bad example of this comes from the last six verses of Revelation. None of the MSS that Erasmus used contain those last six verses in Revelation, so the only thing he could do to come up with those last six verses was go to the Latin Vulgate, translated by Jerome in the 3rd century, and back-translated from the Latin. As a result of that there are at least twenty errors in the TR in the last six verses that have no support of any Greek MSS and they are still in the TR today. Another example is Acts 9:6 where Erasmus added the words “and he trembling and astonished, said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him.” These words came from the Latin Vulgate but are not found in any Greek MS anywhere.

5.       But the most incredible problem is what is known as the Johannine Sentence. That is, that there is the last part of 1 John 5:7 and the first part of verse 8 aren’t included in any of the important Greek MSS.

6.       These verses appear in only eight Greek MSS, none of which can be dated earlier than the 10th century. Furthermore, it is clear from the way from the word order is in the Greek that it was translated from the Lain and not from the Greek. But in four of these eight MSS it is not in the text, it is in the margin as a marginal note as an explanation of what is in the text. What would happen is that a later scribe would come along and include that note into the main MS and it would find its way in as part of the text. If these verses were genuine, because there is such a clear statement of the Trinity, they would have been cited and referred to in the great debates defining the Trinity that occurred at the Council of Nicea in 325 and the Council of Chalcedon in 451. No scholar, no early church father, ever cites these verses. They don’t appear until after the great Trinitarian controversy of the 4th and 5th century.

7.       How did they get here? They got there because Erasmus was bullied into putting it into the Bible. When Erasmus first published his addition, his Greek text, in 1516 there was an English scholar by the name of Leigh who constantly criticised Erasmus, and after several years of being criticised by Leigh, Erasmus wrote the following reply: “If a single MS should come into my hands that had those verses I would have used it to fill in what was missing in the other MSS I had. But because that did not happen I have taken the only course permissible and left it out.” Later Leigh continued to badger Erasmus that he was negligent and that he had just left it out, so finally Erasmus said: “If you just come up with a single MS that shows this then I’ll put it into my Greek New Testament.” Leigh finally produced a MS that possessed that particular quotation and so Erasmus included the extra text in his 3rd edition of his New Testament. But in later editions he took it out. Then later in the 1600s those additional words were reinserted by later editors and became part of TR. That shows how inadvertently an extra verse or two came to be inserted into the New Testament. But it is in TR and in every KJV, so if the KJV only people say the KJV is right and is always right then they are basing their view on a text that has major errors.  

8.       Is the Johannine sentence Scripture? No, the evidence seems to suggest it is not. Is it true? Yes. Is it sound theology? Yes, but it is not attested in any of the MSS that have any serious reliability. It was forced into the text by the bullying manoeuvrers of the Roman Catholic church as represented by the scholar E. Leigh.

9.       This is one of only numerous examples of problems with the text underlying the King James version. In fact, hundreds of additions and revisions were made to the KJV between 1611 and 1781. The KJV of 1611 had over eight thousand notes in the margin with alternate readings and translation suggestions. In that edition some of those suggestions are exactly the translations that followed in some modern translations. The KJV had so many errors that it was revised in 1612, 1613, 1616, 1629, and 1638. In fact, by 1659 a tract was written by William Kilburn called “Dangerous Errors” in several late-printed Bibles to the great scandal and corruption of sound and true religion,” and he claimed that 20,000 different errors had crept into six different editions of the KJV. Most modern versions are based on Benjamin Blaney’s edition in 1769 which differs from the 1611 translation by over 75,000 details. Which “King James only” are we talking about? The original KJV also contained the Apocrypha. It was not first excluded until 1629 and it was not generally omitted from the KJV until the 19th century. Furthermore, there have been numerous changes to the KJV. For example, originally Deuteronomy 26:1 read: “the LORD,” and now it reads “the LORD thy God.” Jeremiah 49:1 originally read “inherit God,” and it was changed to “inherit Gad.” Mark 10:18 originally read, “there is no man good but one,” now it reads “there is none good but one.” 1 Corinthians 4:9 originally read “approved unto death,” now it reads “appointed unto death.”

10.   There are over 1838 differences between the TR and the Majority Text. The TR was based on seven MSS, none older than the tenth century, whereas the Majority Text is based on over 4000 MSS and the oldest goes back to the 4th century AD. The TR represents what is called the Byzantine text type, which is the text type of the Majority Text. So the Majority Text is a superior text and a superior basis for translation.

Only the original autographs in the Greek and Hebrew were inspired by God. All translations have errors because of the nature of translation. Theology often enters in as do other problems.

1 John 5:6 NASB “This is the One who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth.” The Old Testament Law said that we need to confirm anything by at least two witnesses. So the Holy Spirit testified as to who Jesus Christ was through the revelation of the Word to the apostles. The water and the blood give evidence as to who Jesus was from the testimony of God the Father and the baptism and His resurrection after the crucifixion. These three all agree as one that Jesus is undiminished deity and true humanity.

Kinsmanr-redeemer

The five responsibilities of the kinsman-redeemer   RD/Ruth/008

1)      He has a responsibility toward the property of the family. The Word of God recognizes the importance of personal ownership of property. The kinsman-redeemer was to make sure that the inheritance—the possession of land that God had given to each Israelite in the land—was never lost to the family, that the hereditary property of the family never passed out of the family and was never lost. God made sure that every member in Israelite society had land. The kinsman-redeemer was to protect the family, and we are going to see that that is a key idea in redemption—protection. The Word of God recognizes personal ownership of property, and so that shows that socialism and communism have no place in any kind of society that is grounded on the Word of God. Socialism and communism are never authorized by the Word of God because the Word of God recognizes the right of personal ownership of property and to enjoy the benefits and the blessings of personal ownership of property. Ownership of property brings with it a certain amount of responsibility, to use it wisely and not to use it merely selfishly.

2)      He was to protect the liberty of the family. There is a connection between freedom and owning property. There were times under the Mosaic law that if a family became indebted then in order to pay things back they could put themselves in to slavery. Modern liberalism wants to look at an institution like slavery and say that it is bad, and by definition evil. But God doesn’t regulate evil. That means that when God regulates slavery in the Old Testament He says that slavery in principle is not evil. It may be practiced in evil ways. For example, racial slavery, slavery that you can’t get out of or the person can’t buy himself out of, is evil. God provided a system of slavery that was a protection in the Old Testament, where a person could go into slavery for a period of time but they always had a way to buy themselves out, or a kinsman-redeemer could come and buy them out. Not only that, but at the end of fifty years, the year of jubilee, all slaves were free. If you sold your property in order to get the money to pay off debts, in the year of jubilee it was returned back to the family so that the family never lost its property. So it was not the kind of harsh slavery that we often associate with. It was a way to provide security for people who had been irresponsible and could no longer live in society because they had given up all their security. So the goel, the kinsman-redeemer, was to maintain the freedom of individuals within the family by buying back those who had been sold into slavery because of poverty. If he had the resources then he could purchase their freedom. So the purchase of freedom is another aspect that is inherent in the concept of the kinsman-redeemer. We find this covered in Leviticus 25:47ff. “And if a sojourner or stranger wax rich by you, and your brother that dwells by him become poor, and sell himself to the stranger or sojourner by you, or to the stock of the stranger's family: after that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brothers may redeem him: either his uncle, or his uncle's son [the extended family or clan can pick up the goel’s right], may redeem him, or any that is near of kin unto him of his family may redeem him; or if he prospers, he may redeem himself. And he shall reckon with him that bought him from the year that he was sold to him to the year of jubilee: and the price of his sale shall be according unto the number of years, according to the time of a hired servant shall it be with him. If there are still many years behind, he shall refund part of his purchase price in proportion to them for his own redemption. And if few years remain to the year of jubilee, then he shall calculate with him, in proportion to his years he is to refund the amount for his redemption. Lie a man hired year by year he shall be with him: he shall not rule with severity over him in your sight.” So there were rules for the master. He was not to be oppressive in his ownership of a slave. Verse 54, “And if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he, and his sons with him.” So there was always this out. Verse 55, “For the sons of Israel my servants whom I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.” The picture here is that the land is owned my the Lord, everything is owned by the Lord, and He is parceling that out to the families and to the individuals, and if they fail because of irresponsibility or whatever reason and they lose it, then it is not lost permanently and it reverts back to the family during the year of jubilee because the ultimate owner is the great King who is simply parceling this out to His vassals.

3)      He is to be concerned with the life of the family. He is to track down and execute murderers of near relatives. He is called the blood avenger in the Old Testament. Numbers 35:12; 19, 27. There were cities of refuge provided where they could escape and live and not die, but if they were outside the city of refuge then he could take their life legitimately. The Bible recognizes capital punishment. In Numbers 35:12 the word for “avenger” is goel. So that is a part of the meaning of the word, he is an avenger. He is the one who is going to be executing justice here.

4)      He was to make sure the family had a future. That means that he was to receive money for restitution for any deceased crime victim. If the victim of a crime died then money was to be taken in by the goel as restitution for that crime and that would provide for the future of the family. Assuming the crime victim was not able to take care of the family in the future this financial restitution would provide security for the future of the family. Numbers 5:8.

5)      Justice. The goel was responsible to make sure that justice was served in any legal matter involving a relative. This is seen in various passages: Job 19:23; Psalm 119:154; Jeremiah 50:34. In Job 19 Job says: “ know that my redeemer lives.” He has gone through unjust suffering in his eyes, undeserved suffering. “…and at the last he will take his stand on the earth.” This is referring to the justice that God executes on the earth. This is the court of last and final appeal, and when all is said and done God is the one who will bring about justice for the family, and whatever has happened in my life that is undeserved and unjust it will all be made right by the Lord at the final judgment. Psalm 119:154, “Plead my cause, and redeem me; revive me according to thy word.” The terminology, “plead my cause,” comes right out of Hebrew legal terminology, to plead a cause in a courtroom. Notice how the concept of justice and pleading a cause is related to redemption. He is praying to God to exercise His role as the goel for mankind, and here it also has the idea of protection. Jeremiah 50:34, “…he will vigorously plead their case.” That is from the Hebrew rib, and has to do with presenting a case in a courtroom. He will vigorously plead their case, and that is His role as redeemer. He pleads their case in the supreme court of heaven, “so that he may bring rest to the earth, but turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon.” This takes place just prior to the Babylonian captivity and is a promise that God ultimately will bring justice against the Chaldeans (Babylonians).

So the goel emphasizes family responsibilities and the emphasis is on the corporate unity of the family. Notice that the goel is related to three divine institutions: the first divine institution, which is responsibility; the third divine institution, which is family; and the fifth divine institution, which is the nation. We could also add in the fourth divine institution because he was to execute justice, so it is related to human government. The function of the family unit and family responsibility is inherent to the stability of any nation.

The concept of goel goes far beyond the practice in a human dimension, it goes into the whole doctrine of redemption. So we will look at the doctrine of redemption as it is developed out of this illustration.

1)      Redemption terminology. There are two Old Testament words used for redemption. Padah is the first word and it means to ransom, to deliver, to rescue someone. The core idea is to pay a price for the transfer of ownership. Whenever we think of the word “redemption” we should think of the payment of a price for the transfer of ownership from one person to another. It is a financial term. Though it always emphasizes payment of a price the goal is always freedom, to free something, whether it is an individual, an animal, or an object. So it emphasizes the payment of a price to free someone or something from a state such as slavery, death or destruction. The second word is the verb ga’al which means to deliver, to save, to redeem, to remove an object from a dangerous situation as an extension of being redeemed from indenture or slavery—Exodus 6:6. It means to buy back, to purchase back an item or a person with money or goods that had been sold at a prior time—Leviticus 25:25. So this also emphasizes the payment of a price. It has as a secondary meaning the idea of protection. Then the noun form is goel, and that is the form we find in Ruth. It means kinsman-redeemer, redempter. That is, a relative who buys an object from indenture or slavery or possession and control, as an obligation to help a widow (Ruth 4:6), and another part of the obligation is to marry the widow. Redeemer as a title of God would focus on the fact that He has redeemed or bought back a person from unfavorable circumstances and so now has provided relationship with the one who redeemed. Job 19:25; Psalm 19:14; 78:35; 103:4; Proverbs 23:11; Isaiah 41:14; 43:14; 44:6. The same ideas come from New Testament words which all come from two root words. One is LUTROO [lutrow], and there are various forms with different prepositions. The first is ANTILUTRON [a)ntilutron] which means the payment for the freedom of a slave or a prisoner. In 1 Timothy 2:6 it indicates substitution—HUPER [u(per] plus the genitive of advantage. So it is payment as a substitute. The second form of this word is APOLUTROSIS [a)polutrwsij], which also means deliverance procured by the payment of a ransom. It means to release a slave upon payment of a ransom. The third word is LUTRON [lutron], the root noun, and it means the payment of a ransom. It is the ransom price Christ paid for freedom. The verb is LUTROO [lutrow], which means to pay the ransom, to deliver by ransom, to liberate, and in the middle voice it is used to mean redeem. There is another noun LUTROSIS [lutrwsij] which means redemption, deliverance, or freedom. Then there is another noun. LUTROTES [lutrowthj] which refers to the redeemer, the liberator, the deliverer, the one who pays for freedom—in Acts 7:35 it refers to Moses as the redeemer of Israel, and that took place at the Exodus. The next word is AGORAZO [a)gorazw], which means to buy or to purchase in the market place.  

Knowledge of God must precede reciprocity Why?

Why the knowledge of God must precede reciprocity  RD/1 John/073

1.       If we don’t understand God’s love for us we will never understand how to love God, and that means we will never make it very far in the spiritual life.

2.       When believers superimpose their own emotions and motivations on the love of God they are guilty of humanising the love of God. We have to model our love after God’s, not the other way around. True divine love is based on correct thinking, and correct thinking can only come from objectivity. Objectivity can only come from doctrine in the soul, and doctrine in the soul only comes through making learning doctrine a priority.

3.       God is not emotion. Emotion is a response to what we think to be true. So thinking produces a response, and that is emotion. The love of God is not emphasising an emotion but it is emphasising the positive application of His thinking toward the believer. God knew about us in all eternity past and it did not diminish His love for us. In other words, His love is not built on that we do or say.

4.       Knowledge of God must precede a reciprocal love for God because we can’t really understand the love of God unless we understand a lot of things about God that are revealed in His Word. You can’t love someone you don’t know.

5.       We have to be motivated by knowing the love of God through the doctrine in our souls before we can respond to it. Understanding God’s love then motivates us to love Him and to continue to grow and mature in the spiritual life.

6.       God knew everything about us in eternity past, yet He still loved us with the same maximum amount of love.

7.       If we love God we will love the Word of God. If we do not love to study the Word of God then we haven’t learned to love God yet and may never learn to love God because the Word of God is the thinking of God and to learn to love anybody we must learn to understand their thinking.  

Knowledge of God- The Importance of the

Knowledge of God- The Importance of the RD/John/094

   1. No doctrine is more significant, more foundational and more crucial to our lives than knowing God. NASB “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.” It is the fool that has said there is no God. So if we want to guarantee a life of foolishness and a life of mental collapse then we ignore God. But if we really want to know how things are, if we really want to understand reality as it is, then God is the one who defines that, so that which is the beginning point is knowing God. NASB “Because they hated knowledge And did not choose the fear of the LORD.” NASB “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” NASB “Then you will discern the fear of the LORD And discover the knowledge of God.” So the knowledge of God is foundational to all other knowledge. Not only has God revealed Himself to us non-verbally through creation, He has also revealed Himself to us verbally. He has given us propositional revelation. That means that the Scriptures are given in clear statements. NASB “that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit [mental attitude] of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him.” NASB “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment.” NASB “so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please {Him} in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.” Peter reminds us that this is the essence and the means of our spiritual growth. , NASB “Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.” Growth is related to knowledge.    2. A warning. Don’t fall into the trap of rationalisation that we really can’t know God. So many people think that the best that we can hope for in studying God is just some sort of vague, nebulous appreciation for God. That, if we think about it, embodies a blasphemy against God. That is really saying you can’t know God. If God is the ultimate reality we ought to realise that the most important thng for us is to think precisely about who he is and to understand Him. We can’t love who we don’t know.    3. Nothing is more practical than for us to push the boundaries of our thinking to understand God at a greater level.    4. The Trinity is the ultimate and eternal reality.    5. It demands the intricacies of the knowledge of Greek and Hebrew. We just can’t get through some passages if we don’t have a knowledge of the original languages.    6. In terms of its importance, ultimately our very salvation hangs in the balance. This doctrine is so crucial that to not understand it really impacts the very core of Jesus’ work on the cross. Jesus’ work on the cross is based on the person of Christ. Who He is determines what He can do. So if we tweak out certain aspects of His person then we have problems with His work.

Laver or Confession of Sin

Laver or Confession of Sin     RD/ Heb 130c

So we need to take a look at the significance of the laver.  This pictures Christ as the one who cleanses us from our sins.

Now the laver really isn’t mentioned that much in Scripture.  There are a few passages I’m going to mention here in Exodus.  There is briefly mentioned in terms of the consecration of the priests in Leviticus 8 and it’s mentioned in terms of the architecture and the construction of the Solomonic Temple, and then some changes that were made to it a little later on…two or three verses in Kings.  That’s it.  It’s not mentioned anywhere else.  But, it’s important to pay attention to what is going here because the laver is designed to teach a crucial principle for the spiritual life.

In Exodus 30:17-20 we have the order from God for the construction of the laver.

NKJ Exodus 30:17 Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying:

NKJ Exodus 30:18 "You shall also make a laver

The Hebrews word is kiyyor.

of bronze, with its base also of bronze, for washing.

Now bronze as we saw earlier speaks of judgment.  It withstands the fire of judgment, the brazen altar.  It speaks of judgment here and so something related to judgment takes place at the laver in terms of the cleansing.  It’s got a base of bronze for washing.

You shall put it between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar. And you shall put water in it,

Now the Hebrew word I want you to pay attention to in the original Hebrew text is that word for washing.  The verb is rahas.  It is a generic or broad based term.  It can refer to washing your hands or it can refer to taking an entire bath.  The Hebrew word itself does not distinguish between partial washings and complete or total washings.  That comes though when you have the Septuagint.   The Septuagint, remember, is translated between approximately 200 BC and 100 BC.  It was a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek because the Jews in the exile (the Jews in the Diaspora) had lost their facility with Hebrew and so they needed to have the Scriptures in the language that they were familiar with so they could understand it.  So the rabbis decided to translate the Old Testament into Greek.  The story was that 70 rabbis in 70 days translated the Pentateuch from Hebrew into Greek.  That’s why it’s called the Septuagint related to 70.  It’s often abbreviated with the Roman numeral LXX for seventy.  So you’ll often see that abbreviation in different places.  In the Septuagint the rabbis who all understood the nuance of the Hebrew text did not translate rahas with the same Greek word every time.   They understood that in some passages it was a complete washing or bathing.  In other passages, it was only a partial washing like the washing of hands or the washing of feet.  So when they translated the Hebrew into Greek, they distinguished between these two types of washings.   This is very important to understand because of how the Lord Jesus Christ is going to use this later on.

In Exodus 30:19 we read:

NKJ Exodus 30:19 "for Aaron and his sons shall wash their hands and their feet in water from it.

There the Greek word is nipto.  Nipto is the word that simply refers to a partial washing – the washing of hands, the washing of feet.   In fact the root is used to describe the laver itself.

NKJ Exodus 30:20 "When they go into the tabernacle of meeting, or when they come near the altar to minister, to burn an offering made by fire to the LORD, they shall wash with water, lest they die.

Notice the penalty.  Failure to wash their hands and their feet, failure to have this partial cleansing every time they entered into the service in the tabernacle would result in the death penalty.  God is really making a point here that these guys have to wash their feet and their hands every time they come in.  They walk through the gate.  They wash their hands.  They wash their feet before they can start cutting up the animals to put them on the altar before they go into the tent of meeting.  Before they do anything, the first thing they have to do is they have to wash their hands and wash their feet.  It’s a picture of confession of sin.  You know “how dull and boring and mechanical” somebody might say.  I’ve had people say that.

“Every time you start Bible class you always start with silent prayer.  You say basically the same thing.  We have confession of sin.  It’s so mechanical.”

Well, that’s how you teach things.  It’s called pedagogy.  You go through things over and over and over again because on the one hand people need to be reminded of its importance; and on the other hand there are new people coming in who haven’t quite learned how significant this is.  In the Old Testament the importance of experiential sanctification (because that’s the key word that we’re going to see here)…

The Old Testament uses the word to be set apart, to be sanctified, to be made holy.  It’s the Hebrew word qadash which is the counterpart to the New Testament word hagiazo.  It has this idea of experiential or ongoing sanctification.  Before the priest can serve God, they have to be experientially set apart to serve God for that day.  The fact that it had happened the day before or the day before or that they had been completely bathed sometime in the past is another issue.

Now when you look at the Exodus 30:21, the text goes on to say:

NKJ Exodus 30:21 "So they shall wash their hands

Nipto

and their feet, lest they die.

Repetition is the key to learning.   When the Holy Spirit repeats things, you have to pay attention.

And it shall be a statute forever to them -- to him and his descendants throughout their generations."

Then we skip to the next passage.  That’s all Exodus 30.  That’s all we have is those verses 17-21.

The next mention we have of the laver is in 38:8.  It adds something new about its construction.  What was it made from? Okay.  It’s made from bronze, but where did they get the bronze.

NKJ Exodus 38:8 He made the laver of bronze and its base of bronze, from the bronze mirrors of the serving women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

So it’s made from mirrors.  So when you would come up to the laver and you looked through the clear water, what are you going to see?  You’re going to see a reflection of yourself.  This is a function of the Word of God.

I want you to hold your place here and turn to the New Testament with me to James 1:22.  Now the first chapter of James (all the way down through 2:13) puts an emphasis on the application of the Word.

“Don’t be a hearer only” - which means don’t just come to Bible class, listen, take notes and accumulate a lot of intellectual knowledge about the Bible.  You have to have intellectual knowledge about the Bible before you can apply it.  That’s the trouble today.

People say, “Ah, we know too much.”

If we only applied a tenth of what we know, just think what great believers we would be. We don’t apply a tenth of what we know about any subject in life.  The more we know (the more the totality of our knowledge)… we only apply about maybe on tenth of 1% at any given time.  So the more the total knowledge, the larger that one tenth of 1% is going to be.

So you continue to learn and grow and you will apply more.  But people don’t want to learn.  I can’t tell you how many times….

Years ago I was in a church and I see, “Oh, we just know.  You dump so much knowledge on us. It’s like an information dump.”

Well, you just don’t want to learn anything do you?

So James emphasizes.  He doesn’t say don’t be a hearer of the Word.

He says, “Be a hearer and a doer.”

Add something to it.  Don’t just collect information, but apply it.

He gives an illustration.  He says in 1:22:

NKJ James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

See the person who just comes and listens collects a lot of information about the Bible but doesn’t really think about its application.

Now I remember years ago sitting next to somebody in Bible class and they were taking notes.  Just because of the way we were sitting in Bible class, my eye naturally fell on their notes.  I noticed that when they took notes that if the point was expressed in an impersonal third person sort of construction, they converted it into a first person construction.  “I need to do this.”  Every point that was given they converted that into “I need to do this” if it would make sense that way.

I thought, “Boy.  That really makes it personal, doesn’t it?”

That’s convicting.  Let’s move on.

  NKJ James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

When you only listen to the Word and you’re not thinking in terms of “how does that impact” or “how should that change the way I think, the way I relate to people, the way I respond to situations, how is that going to change me fundamentally?”; then you’re in self deception.  You’re just getting information and you’re not thinking terms of this information is designed to change me.

Then James gives an illustration.  In fact what’s interesting is I was talking to a pastor just this morning.  We meet weekly.

He was telling me, “Have you ever heard anybody interpret James this way?”

He related the fact that he had somebody in is congregation come up and say, “Well, a hearer is somebody who shows up at Bible class.  A doer is a person who really understands what it says.”

Application is not related.

I thought, “Boy!  That sounds like the objector over in James 2.”

Maybe you ought to respond by saying, “What do you do with the next verse?”

The next verse says:

NKJ James 1:23 For

Explanation

if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer,

Applier of the Word

he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;

NKJ James 1:24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.

So what James is saying here is you wake up in the morning and you go into the bathroom and you look in the mirror and you’ve got bed head.  Your hair is going in 40 different directions and you need a shave.  You’ve got that stubble starting to show up.   See that’s the value - as we look a little fuzzier around the edges as we get older and our eyesight goes… I look in the mirror and I can’t tell if I’ve shaved or not for four days.  That’s the trouble.   I had a beard for so many years when I didn’t need to shave.  I look in the mirror and I don’t notice that I haven’t shaved.   Sometimes I’ll get somewhere… I did this the other day at Bible class.

“I didn’t shave today”.

I don’t look in the mirror and see myself anymore.

So this is a person who looks in the mirror and says, “You need a shave.  Your hair is crazy.  Okay.”

Now what do you do?  You go fix breakfast, have a cup of coffee and forget what you looked at.  Well, that’s the person who is a hearer and not an applier, not a doer.  The person who is a hearer and a doer responds to that.

You look in a mirror and say, “Ah! I need to comb my hair.  I look crazy.”

If you are a lady you need to put some makeup on.  I need to shave…whatever it is you recognize that as you see truth in the mirror, that truth tells you that you need to change something about yourself.  The Word of God reflects reality and so we see that which needs to conform to truth.

When you come to the laver, what is reflected in the mirror of the laver is the sin of the individual.  He sees himself as he is.  So there is a recognition there that we need to look at ourselves, look at the reflection of ourselves to see if there is sin there.  If there is sin there, we need to confess it.  That’s the point of application.

So it’s made out of a mirror because we need to look and examine our lives and to see if there is sin there.  If there is, we need to confess it.

Now the next time we have the laver mentioned is in Exodus 40.  This is at the consecration of the priest when he first enters into service.  The laver is mentioned.

NKJ Exodus 40:7 "And you shall set the laver between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, and put water in it.

NKJ Exodus 40:12 "Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the door of the tabernacle of meeting and wash them with water.

NKJ Exodus 40:13 "You shall put the holy garments on Aaron, and anoint him and consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.

When the rabbis translated this into the Septuagint, they didn’t translate it with nipto.  They translated it with louo.  This is the initial bathing, the complete washing of the priest.  He was bathed from head to toe.  This is equivalent to positional sanctification.

Now what does that mean?  Those are big words.  It means that our position before God is completely sanctified.  God looks at us (as the believer, as being as our position for the believer in the Church Age)…our position in Christ is that we are completely cleansed of all sin.  We are completely forgiven positionally.  But this doesn’t have to do with the day-to-day experience of our Christian lives.  That’s the point of comparison.  At the beginning of Aaron’s ministry, he’s positionally cleansed.  They are bathed from head to toe.  Then, they would put on their sanctified, set-apart garments.  They were anointed and consecrated so that they could serve as priests.

Now there are other things that happened as well related to different sacrifices and offerings.  When we get into our study of the priesthood we will look at those.  But for now what I want to do is look in the last 4 minutes…Tomorrow’s a holiday we’ll take 10 minutes.  We’re going to look at how Jesus picks up on this terminology in John 13.  This is as they come together to celebrate the Passover the night before the Lord goes to the cross.  He is with the disciples in the Upper Room.  Jesus took the position of being the servant.  The servant would come to wash the feet of the guests that would come in.  But, he’s taking this to a new level and he’s going to use this to teach a principle.

So turn with me if you will to the John 13:1.  I’m just going to make a couple of quick points here because it’s fairly obvious.  Then we’ll see how all of this connects.

NKJ John 13:1 Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that His hour had come that He should depart from this world to the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. 2 And supper being ended, the devil having already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray Him,

So Judas is an unbeliever.  He’s not just having the devil put ideas into him.  That would be demon influence. But later on it says that the devil goes into him – eiserchomai, the same word used for demon possession.  So he is an unbeliever.

NKJ John 13:3 Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come from God and was going to God,

 John 13:4 rose from supper and laid aside His garments, took a towel and girded Himself.

So now after supper He is going to go through this process of washing their feet.

NKJ John 13:5 After that, He poured water into a basin

The word for basin there is related to nipto.

and began to wash the disciples' feet, and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded

So He goes from Matthew to Thaddeus to James.  Each one sits there and says, “Well, this is interesting” watching Jesus watch their feet.  He would wash their feet, wipe them off with a towel that He had.  

Then He comes to Peter.  Peter has been watching this.  Peter’s not so sure that the Lord… remember Peter is the one who realizes Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God.  He’s not so sure this is the right thing for the Lord to be doing.

So in Peter’s wealth of human viewpoint, he says:

John 13:6 Then He came to Simon Peter. And Peter said to Him, "Lord, are You washing my feet?"

We would put it, “Lord, why are you washing my feet?”

 John 13:7 Jesus answered and said to him, "What I am doing you do not understand now, but you will know after this."

“I’m picturing something.  I’m depicting something in action, but you don’t understand it right now.  But, you will later.  But, right now you’re not going to understand the full import of this.”

NKJ John 13:8 Peter said to Him, "You shall never wash my feet!"

“I’m not going to let you do this.  You may be having a teaching point here or an analogy but I’m not going to let you do it.”

Jesus answered him, "If I do not wash you,

Nipto – all these so far that’s the only word used, partial washing.

you have no part with Me."

Now that word “part”…in English we tend to think of it like an actor has a part in a play.  He has a role in the play.    Too often that’s the idea that we get.  The Greek word here though is the word miras.  Miras is a word used in legal literature usually wills and testaments (last wills and testaments) to indicate the portion of the inheritance that’s designated to a person.

When the prodigal son comes to his father and says, “Hey dad!  I want to go live my life.  I want to leave here.  I want to go have fun.  Give me my share of the inheritance.”

The word that he uses there is miras.  It’s the same word that’s used here.  Part is a bad translation.

Jesus is saying, “If I don’t wash with you, you have no share of inheritance with Me.”

That’s a powerful statement.  It impacts Peter.

NKJ John 13:9 Simon Peter said to Him, "Lord, not my feet only, but also my hands and my head!"

“Give me a bath!”

So he goes from one end of the spectrum to the other.

NKJ John 13:10 Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed

Louo – that’s that word that described the complete washing of the high priest at the beginning of his service; but it only happened once – at the beginning.

needs only to wash his feet,

Nipto.

but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all of you."

That implies that he is only partially clean prior to the partial washing.  The issue here is cleansing and the noun here is katharos related to the verb katharizo.

We say I John 1:9:

NKJ 1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Cleanse us – katharizo.  That’s that idea.

The important thing in I John - some years ago there was a controversy and this comes up every now and then – do we really need to confess our sin?  Some of you remember there was a lot of discussion a few years ago about this.  Everybody focuses on “ Well, it seems like confession is legalistic.”  I’ve heard that many times.  Why don’t you confess your sins?  They miss the point.  The emphasis in I John 1:9 isn’t on confessing.  The issue is cleansing.  What do you do with post salvation sin?  If you don’t need to be cleansed of it, then does it have any impact on your relationship with God?

Trust me in any relationship you have whether it’s marriage, whether it’s a parental relationship, whether you’re the child or the parent, work relationship -  if you do something that offends the other person in the relationship, then something has to be done to clear that up before harmony is restored.  That’s just the way life is.

It’s the same thing with God.  To think that, “Oh, I can go out and I can sin the 7 deadly sins or whatever and I don’t have to confess them or do anything just trust that God is going to automatically forgive me because Jesus died for me” is a recipe for licentiousness - much more so than people think that I John 1:9  is “just confess your sin and it’s okay” is a recipe for licentiousness.

Using I John 1:9 means every now and then at least you have to think about whether there is any sin in your life.  If you don’t have to confess your sin, you’re automatically forgiven because you’re trusting God to automatically do it; you’d never have to think about the sin.  You would really make hay of all the sunshine so to speak.

NKJ John 13:10 Jesus said to him, "He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you,

He says to Peter….

are clean

Actually it’s not just “you” to Peter.  It’s a “y’all” there.  It’s a plural.  “Y’all are clean” meaning all of the disciples.  Y’all are clean.

but not all of you."

In other words there is one of you who isn’t positionally cleansed i.e. there’s one of you that’s not saved.  But the rest of y’all are all completely clean and positionally saved.

Then John explains what he meant by this.

NKJ John 13:11 For He knew who would betray Him;

He’s speaking about Judas.

therefore He said, "You are not all clean."

That is you are not all positionally cleansed or saved.

Then verse 12:

NKJ John 13:12 So when He had washed their feet, taken His garments, and sat down again, He said to them, "Do you know what I have done to you?

NKJ John 13:14 "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

This is a picture of not only divine forgiveness but also forgiveness one to another. That’s what he’s going to end up teaching after he identifies the betrayer and kicks Judas out between verse 18 and 30.  Then He gives the new commandment that we are to love one another as He has loved us.  That relates to the grace orientation of forgiving one another which is what He has illustrated.  He is illustrating divine forgiveness.  

When Jesus washes partially (nipto)  and says, “You are all already bathed (louo) so you are all clean; he is using the same terminology and drawing a connection (a continuity) between the Old Testament priesthood service and the New Testament priesthood service and that there’s an underlying principle.  That is for a priest to serve God he has to be in sanctified relationship.  When we sin that experiential sanctification is broken.  We become in terms of sanctification - we become unclean.  But, when we confess our sins God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness so that we can then continue in our Christian growth and Christian service.

So the laver is a picture and reminder of the fact that the believer needs to be confessing sin and needs to have ongoing cleansing in order to be able to serve God.  It is a daily and significant thing that the believer needs to keep close watch on his sins.

With that we finish the outer courtyard.  Next time we’ll come back and look at what is going on inside the Holy of Holies. 

Lazy, Sluggish, and Dull of Hearing

What causes a believer to become lazy, sluggish, and dull of hearing?       RD/Heb. 046b

   1. The first thing that causes a believer to become lazy, sluggish or dull or hard of hearing is that the study and application of the Word of God is no longer important.  Not just study, but the study and application!  You can’t separate the two in true biblical study.  The study and application of the Word of God is no longer a priority.  This doesn’t happen overnight with most people.  It happens gradually.  All of a sudden what comes up is that business pressure or this event that my kids need to be in.  They have got to get to soccer today.  They have got to get to ballet tomorrow.  They have to get to their piano lesson.  All of a sudden the parents quite being parents and the scheduling of priorities of the spiritual life of the family starts to erode because of dictates from the children.  One of the things that grate on me as a pastor is when I hear someone say, “I have decided to go to this church because that is where my kids want to go.”  Or, “I want to go to this church because they have this for my kids.”   Okay.  Who runs the insane asylum at your address?   The guards or the inmates?  Obviously it is the inmates.  You let your kids make the most important decision affecting the family.  That is where you are going to go to get the Word of God.

No!  Parents say to kids, “This is where we are going to church.”  If there is no church youth group it doesn’t matter.  The Word of God is taught by a trained pastor.  That is what matters and that is how you make the decision.

   2. The second thing that causes a believer to become lazy and sluggish is that the details of life distract them from their priorities - all of the various details of life, whatever they may be (friends, family) and we always have distractions.  Some people get the idea that they have so many distractions.  Point out one of us that doesn’t.  That is part of the test that James talks about in James 1:2-4.  We don’t see these things coming.  Every test is a distraction.  Didn’t you know that?  I mean you are going along and all of a sudden your parents are getting a little older and they look in the mirror and they don’t know who they are.  At the same time you have kids that are going through college and they are flunking out or they are getting involved in drugs.  The next thing you know you have a parent doing one thing and you have got kids doing another and you have to be in four different places at one time.  Those distractions are tests.  You can’t get rid of those things.  That is what life is.  The issue is how are we going to deal with the distractions without letting them destroy our priorities on the spiritual life?

   3. Third, sin and or human good become a distraction which begins to callous the soul to the truth.  We get involved in sin.  It can be very subtle.  It can be overt sin.  Usually by the time a Christian slips into overt carnality, they have been going there mentally for sometime and they just been spending more and more time out of fellowship and walking by the flesh.  They are also producing human good at the same time.  

   4. The result of this is that a person gets to the point where they become divided between two views, human viewpoint on one hand and divine viewpoint on the other.  This is the person described in James 1 as the two-souled or double minded man.  He wants to live his life according to two different systems of values.  But you can’t merge them.  You either have paganism and pagan values on the one hand.  No matter how good or establishment they may be, it is still paganism. On the other hand you have the Bible.  You can’t walk with one foot on each side.  You have to make a decision at some point in your Christian life.  Are you going to pursue consistent biblical thinking in your life or are you going to pursue living within your comfort zone around people you like and politicians you like and other things you like because that is where you are comfortable?  The more you become biblical in your thinking and in your lifestyle, the more you are going to be at odds with the world around you.  A lot of people just don’t like that because it separates them from their friends or their family that they have known for a long time.  All of a sudden they feel isolated.

This is what Elijah is challenging the people with in I Kings 18:21.

NKJ 1 Kings 18:21 And Elijah came to all the people, and said, "How long will you falter between two opinions? If the LORD is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him." But the people answered him not a word.

Most Christians never reach the point that they fully make the decision and decide to stick with it.

Lie, The Big

Three things about the big lie: the basic principle, the agent of the big lie technique, and soul issues.   RD/Kings 041b

First of all, in terms of the basic principle, anything that is said loudly enough and frequently enough will come to be believed by the masses no matter how irrational it may be or how much lack of evidence there may be for it.

Second: The agent of the big lie (the public lie technique) is in today’s world the news media.

Third: His soul is enslaved to unrighteousness. When there is little influence from Bible doctrine, when there are few believers that are proclaiming the truth and even fewer that wish to hear it, then there is no understanding of objective truth.

Life did Jesus lay down for us on the cross? ( What kind of )

Life did Jesus lay down for us on the cross? ( What kind of ) RD/John/065

‎‎1)      What is the consequence, the penalty, for sin? Is it spiritual death or is it physical death. NASB “The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; [17] but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.” Notice the phrase “in the day [be yom].” This should be understood as a literal 24-hour day. “In the day” almost becomes an idiom for when, at the moment when you do something. So idiomatically it means “in the instant that you eat” something is going to happen. Then in the Hebrew there is a repetition of the verb—mot is a qal infinitive absolute; tamut is the second person singular qal imperfect of the same word, mot, and the verb means to die. It has been taught that the way to translate this is, “dying you shall die.” If we know anything about grammar we know that this word with the ing ending is either a gerundive or a participle. But this is an infinitive, and a participle is not an infinitive and an infinitive is not a participle. There is not a single Hebrew grammar anywhere that supports this translation. There are a number of other passages in the Scripture that use this same phraseology. NASB “The man shall surely be put to death ...” Here is a qal infinitive absolute of mot plus a hophal imperfect, the same syntax, the same grammar, using the same verb. If you are going to execute somebody for a capital crime you would not say at that point, “you shall certainly dying him so that he shall die.” It doesn’t make sense. What is being said is emphasis, and that is the point that every grammar makes of a qal infinitive absolute plus an imperfect tense verb. It is for emphasis, for certainty, for surety, that at the moment this happens you will certainly die. NASB “He who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” This has the same phrase. NASB “He said, ‘I will surely return to you at this time next year’ …” This is the Lord talking and He uses the qal infinitive absolute of shub (return) plus the qal imperfect to emphasise that “I will definitely, certainly return.” NASB “indeed I will greatly bless you …” There we have a piel infinitive absolute plus a piel imperfect of barach meaning to bless: “I will certainly bless you,” not “blessing I will bless you.” So in what God is saying is that “in the day, at that moment when you eat, you will definitely die.” What happened when Adam ate from the tree? He didn’t die physically. He was separated from God so that when God came to walk in the garden with Adam and Eve they went and hid, because they no longer had perfect righteousness and could not have fellowship with God. There was a separation that occurred. Adam was still alive physically but he had died spiritually so that there was a break in his relationship with God. The penalty for sin, then, is spiritual death. It is not physical death.  

‎‎2)      What we see here is that there are two categories of death for this discussion, physical death and spiritual death. Spiritual death itself has two categories. There is real spiritual death which is the death that Adam and all of his descendants experience. We are truly separated from God because we lack righteousness. Then there will be the substitutionary spiritual death of Jesus Christ on the cross. Where we are headed with this is that Jesus Christ’s death on the cross accounted for our salvation was not His physical death, because physical death is not the penalty for sin. The penalty must be paid in kind.

‎‎3)      When Adam sinned in the garden of Eden the entire human race entered into spiritual death. God knows in His omniscience that what Adam did every one of us would do. NASB “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” There are seven of Adam’s sin in the garden: a) the instant Adam sinned he died spiritually; b) In spiritual death he became dichotomous having only a body and soul, ; c) his original sin generated the sin nature which is then genetically passed on to the entire human race; d) we sin because we have a sin nature; e) the incarnation of Jesus Christ in hypostatic union is the direct result of Adam’s original sin because only a man can die for man.

‎‎4)      In rightly dividing the Word of truth we must recognise that for the penalty of sin to be paid it must be paid in kind. A physical death does not pay the penalty for spiritual death, therefore the substitutionary death of our Lord must refer to a spiritual death and not a physical death.

‎‎5)      To understand the atonement we must define the meaning of atonement. It is a word that is used in the Old Testament but not in the New Testament. Atonement is a summary term that describes all that was accomplished by the death of Christ on the cross, including the need, the nature, the focus, the means, and the extent of that death. 

‎‎6)      The need for the atonement. The need is the character of God. God is perfect righteousness, absolute perfection, and He cannot have fellowship with any creature that is less than perfection. This is the standard of God’s character. It we don’t meet His standard we can’t have a relation ship with Him. Then there is the justice of God, the application of that standard. Because God is perfect His justice is perfect and He is perfectly fair, so what the righteousness of God demands in terms of the standard the justice of God executes or applies. But the love of God in eternity past initiated a solution based on the grace of God. Jesus Christ would pay the penalty as a substitute for mankind so that all the sins of mankind would be poured forth on Jesus Christ. Then when we believe in Jesus Christ God takes the perfect righteousness of Christ and gives it to us, imputes it to us, and that substitutes for our negative righteousness. So it is not our negative righteousness that is the issue anymore. That was paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross. The issue now is the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and when we trusted Christ as saviour God the Father imputed to us the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, and so when the perfect righteousness of God looks on us the standard is met. What the righteousness of God accepts the justice of God blesses, so that the justice of God can now bless us because of who Jesus Christ is and what He did on the cross.

‎‎7)      The nature of the atonement is substitutionary. This is seen in the Old Testament in the sacrifices. A Jewish believer in the Old Testament would bring a lamb to the priest and it would be placed on the altar. The believer would take his hand and put it on the lamb’s head and recite his sins. His sins were now transferred to that lamb as your substitute and then the lamb’s throat was cut as a reminder that sin is a horrible thing in God’s eyes. So the sacrificial system focused on substitution at its very core. This is seen in NASB “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted. [5] But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our well-being {fell} upon Him, And by His scourging we are healed. [6] All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But the LORD has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.”       There are several false views of the atonement. One is called the moral view. It was first articulated by a priest in the Middle Ages who put forth the moral view which was basically that Christ’s death simply demonstrated how much God loved us and how dedicated Christ was to the plan of God, and so Christ’s death is an example to us of God’s great love and by looking to the cross we see God’s love revealed and that should encourage us to love other people and no longer live is selfishness and sin. This is the view of all the liberal denominations. They have all adopted this heretical moral view of the atonement, that it is just an example for us and not really a payment for sin.

‎‎8)      The focus in the atonement is towards God. In the early church they put forth the view called the ransom to Satan view, that Christ paid a price but He was paying it to Satan. It was completely heretical. The focus of the atonement is the satisfaction of God’s righteous demands, it has nothing to do with Satan.

‎‎9)      The means of the atonement is the spiritual death of Christ on the cross. He died as our substitute spiritually. NASB “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.”

‎‎10)   The extent of the atonement is to all men, not just to believers. NASB “and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for {those of} the whole world.” NASB “and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.” NASB “For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.” NASB “who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, {and} one mediator also between God and men, {the} man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony {given} at the proper time.”

Light

‎‎Summarizing what the Scripture says about light

RD/James/028 ‎‎  ‎‎1)      The Bible tells us that God is light. That is a metaphor in 1 John 1 for His pure character. ‎‎  ‎‎2)      God also is said to emanate light. Light flashes forth from the throne room of God, and that is a metaphor for revelation and illumination. Constantly we see the contrast between light and darkness. In reference to the kingdom of God the Scripture says that at salvation we are transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. Sin is in the realm of darkness; light is the realm of God. ‎‎  ‎‎3)      Revelation has two categories. The first is general revelation which is the non-verbal testimony of creation. Psalm 19:1 NASB “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” Cf. Romans 1:19, 20. [Gap in recording here] ‎‎  ‎‎4)      We learn from John 3:19-21 that light either attracts of repels, depending on the positive or negative volition of the person. If you are positive you will be attracted to the light, there will be a desire to bring your life to the light so that you can have more light to examine your life by. If you are negative, then when light shines on your life you will be repelled by it and you will want to spend your time elsewhere than in Bible class. ‎‎  ‎‎5)      As the Father of lights God is so powerful that He created all things, so He is powerful enough to solve even our greatest problems. ‎‎  ‎‎6)      As the source of revelation God has provided us with all the doctrine we need to face any adversity—2 Peter 1:3. There is no problem that you will ever encounter in life that God has not given you the solution to in the Word of God.

Light

Light  RD/Gal/054

a)      Light represents absolute perfection in the Scriptures, whereas darkness represents all that has been tainted by sin. Light, in fact, represents the absolute righteousness and perfection of God—1 Timothy 6:15,16; 1 John 1:5.

b)      We become sons of light at the moment of salvation, so that becomes a description of our position in Christ. That is, we have positional righteousness, we have the imputation of Christ’s righteousness at the moment of salvation.

c)      We are transferred positionally into light—1 Peter 2:9; Acts 26:18—so that we can receive an inheritance. Colossians 1:13—“He delivered us from the domain,” and here we have the word EXOUSIA [e)cousia] which means authority or power. When you were an unbeliever you were under the authority and the domain of Satan, the domain of darkness no matter how good, how wonderful, how pleasing you were. The same is true for everyone who is not a believer.

d)      Scripture clearly affirms that believers still possess sin natures and thus still perform works of darkness. Even though they are sons of light they can live in darkness—Romans 13:12. Paul would not say “lay aside the works of darkness” if we were not performing deeds of darkness. This is the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb APOTITHEMI [a)potiqhmi]. This word is used sometimes for removing clothing. It means to put away, to put out of the way, to remove, to take off. So the imagery here is of someone changing clothes, taking off one set of clothes and putting on a set of armour. The subjunctive mood is the mood of potentiality and it is sometimes used in certain constructions to emphasize a certain kind of command, and this is called a hortatory subjunctive—hortatory refers to the fact that it is an exhortation. It is an exhortation or a mandate and the subjunctive mood is used in order to emphasize it is a potential. That potential is going to be activated by one’s volition. The believer’s volition determines whether or not this action is going to take place. He is going to make decisions regarding the application of doctrine in his life, it is not automatic.

e)      In principle, light and darkness therefore are clearly seen as absolute, inconsistent categories. You either walk in light or you walk in darkness. But being in the light and walking in the light are not the same thing. That is important. You are either light or darkness; that relates to salvation. And you either walk in light or walk in darkness; that relates to spiritual life. You cannot be walking with one foot in both.

Light

Light  RD/Gal/054

a)      Light represents absolute perfection in the Scriptures, whereas darkness represents all that has been tainted by sin. Light, in fact, represents the absolute righteousness and perfection of God—1 Timothy 6:15,16; 1 John 1:5.

b)      We become sons of light at the moment of salvation, so that becomes a description of our position in Christ. That is, we have positional righteousness, we have the imputation of Christ’s righteousness at the moment of salvation.

c)      We are transferred positionally into light—1 Peter 2:9; Acts 26:18—so that we can receive an inheritance. Colossians 1:13—“He delivered us from the domain,” and here we have the word EXOUSIA [e)cousia] which means authority or power. When you were an unbeliever you were under the authority and the domain of Satan, the domain of darkness no matter how good, how wonderful, how pleasing you were. The same is true for everyone who is not a believer.

d)      Scripture clearly affirms that believers still possess sin natures and thus still perform works of darkness. Even though they are sons of light they can live in darkness—Romans 13:12. Paul would not say “lay aside the works of darkness” if we were not performing deeds of darkness. This is the aorist middle subjunctive of the verb APOTITHEMI [a)potiqhmi]. This word is used sometimes for removing clothing. It means to put away, to put out of the way, to remove, to take off. So the imagery here is of someone changing clothes, taking off one set of clothes and putting on a set of armour. The subjunctive mood is the mood of potentiality and it is sometimes used in certain constructions to emphasize a certain kind of command, and this is called a hortatory subjunctive—hortatory refers to the fact that it is an exhortation. It is an exhortation or a mandate and the subjunctive mood is used in order to emphasize it is a potential. That potential is going to be activated by one’s volition. The believer’s volition determines whether or not this action is going to take place. He is going to make decisions regarding the application of doctrine in his life, it is not automatic.

e)      In principle, light and darkness therefore are clearly seen as absolute, inconsistent categories. You either walk in light or you walk in darkness. But being in the light and walking in the light are not the same thing. That is important. You are either light or darkness; that relates to salvation. And you either walk in light or walk in darkness; that relates to spiritual life. You cannot be walking with one foot in both.

Light and Darkness

Light and darkness are significant metaphors and descriptions in Scripture. Matthew 015b

1.          Light is one of the few attributes of God which is attributed specifically and wholly to Him. Scripture says God is Holy; God is love. These are specific declarative statements. It is not that God isn’t omniscient or omnipresent, but nowhere in Scripture does it say God is omnipresent; it is stated in other ways. These three attributes—God is holy; God is love; God is light—are specifically stated in the Scriptures. Light indicates His righteousness, His purity; that in Him there is no darkness at all. . talks about God dwelling in unapproachable light, who no man has seen or can see. uses the same imagery: “God is the Father of lights, within whom there is no variation or shifting shadow,” literally.  

2.   Light is used in Scripture to depict a couple of different aspects of God. It indicates His pure righteousness as well as His illumination of truth. He reveals truth in darkness. We see both of these aspects in numerous passages. For example, emphasizes that aspect of righteousness. NASB “He will bring forth your righteousness as the light And your judgment [justice] as the noonday.” NASB “For with You is the fountain of life; In Your light we see light.” There are two things that are associated with light there that come up several times. One is life. The life of God is also light. This is the same thing that John says about Jesus in the first chapter of his Gospel: “In Him was life and His life was the light of men.” It is in God’s light, His illumination, that we are able to understand other things. Ultimate understanding comes from revelation. This exposes truth to us so that we can then think clearly and properly understand and interpret our experiences. In other words, rational thought is ultimately guided and directed by God’s revelation. Our understanding and interpretation of empirical things is also determined by God’s revelation. NASB “O send out Your light and Your truth …” See how light is connected to revelation there. “ … let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill And to Your dwelling places.” That light gives us guidance and direction. This is seen again in NASB “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” So God’s illumination is not just out there somewhere functioning independently of things, it is localized in His Word. It is God’s Word that illuminates the path of life, illuminates our thinking. NASB “The unfolding of Your words gives light; It gives understanding to the simple.” You and I cannot understand life or the direction of life without the light of God’s Word. It is the Word of God that illuminates pour thinking, and apart from that we are walking in darkness.

3.   When the writer of the Gospel of John speaks of Jesus as the logos, the Word of God—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”—he goes on to describe the Word of God as being the source of life and the light of the world. Two great passages on this are the first chapter of John and in the third chapter of John, following the well-known conversation with Nicodemus, and of course . NASB “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.” His life itself had an illuminating aspect to it. it reveals to us the Father, as He will go on to say in . NASB “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it… [7] He [John the Baptist] came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. [8] He was not the Light, but {he came} to testify about the Light. [9] There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” Here we have a clear statement of common grace that through the incarnation Jesus illuminates every man to fundamental, general truth about God and the need for salvation.

This goes along with , that everyone knows that God exists for this knowledge is evident in them, for God has made it evident to them. NASB “This is the judgment, that the Light [Jesus] has come into the world, and men loved the darkness [Negative volition] rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil.” They are committed to self-justification. [20] “For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.” In fact, what they want to do is extinguish the Light.

We see that a lot in our culture today. As the influence of biblical Christianity gets less and less, and as pagan thought grows more and more, they are coming out of the closet and expressing their hostility to Christianity and Christian traditions more and more. We will see within the next ten years things that we have never imagined, just as we see things to day we never imagined ten years ago. The only thing that is going to strengthen us and fortify us for what is coming is the Word of God. Because when we get to a point where we, as many believers before us, go through overt persecution for our overt faith in Christ the only thing that is going to sustain us when we possibly could lose everything that we have, is going to be the one thing we can never lose, and that is the knowledge of God’s Word that is in our soul and our understanding of His promises that sustain us. That is what gives us hope. No matter how dark things might appear God always gives us hope that sustains us through His Word.

NASB “But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.” If you are a believer your focal point should be to come to the Light, to learn the Word of God, so that it might expose the wrong that is in your thinking and that it might help you understand how to live rightly before God.

4.          Jesus referred to Himself as the Light of the world. NASB “Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.’” We are told in verse 20 of this chapter that Jesus spoke these words in the treasury while He was teaching in the temple. The temple treasury was in the outer court of the temple. Jesus came to that place at the end of the feast of the tabernacles. During the feast of the tabernacles the Jews would celebrate what they called the illumination of the temple. They would fill the courtyards of the women with menorahs and for a week this would illuminate, send forth a tremendous stream of light out into the darkness surrounding the temple. It was designed to commemorate the pillar of fire that illuminated the way of Israel in the wilderness wanderings under Moses. At the conclusion of the feast as the menorah were being extinguished Jesus walked onto the temple precinct and said: “I am the Light of the world.” He is the one who provides true light in the midst of the darkness. In again He proclaimed this. NASB “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world”, and also in . That light indicates divine revelation, providing direction, guidance and knowledge for people, as we see in passages like NASB “and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness.” In it provides the knowledge of the glory of God. In we are told that Jesus is the one who expresses this most fully, NASB “No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained {Him.}”. His role is to illuminate us as to who God is.

5.          In , we are told, NASB “But all things become visible when they are exposed by the light, for everything that becomes visible is light. For this reason it says, ‘Awake, sleeper, And arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.’” Jesus is the source of illumination for us.

6.          Believers are called sons of light. We are sons of light because that becomes part of our new nature as members of the royal family of God. ; reference believers as sons of light. NASB “for you are all sons of light and sons of day. We are not of night nor of darkness.” Since we are sons of light we are to live a certain way. How are believers to live? We are to live in a way that illuminates the world around us on the basis of truth. NASB “for you were formerly darkness [positionally], but now you are [positionally] Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light.” Because we are positionally sons of Light we are to live like sons of Light. This connects to the same imagery over in NASB “but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light …” Both passages talk about the Christian walk in the Light.

7.          A lot of people ask the question: How do you get the connection of the filling by the Spirit in with confession of sin in ? doesn’t mention confession; doesn’t mention the Spirit. How do we connect those? It goes back to the context. says we are to walk as children of Light; is talking about walking as children is talking about walking as children of Light. Those who are children of Light confess their sins when they shift from walking in darkness to walking in light. Those who are walking in the Light in are those who are filled by means of the Spirit. When we are not walking in the Light we are not being filled by means of the Spirit. So when we put these things together we understand that confession means recovery when we start walking like children of Light and stop walking in darkness.

8.          Christians, by virtue of their of their position as receptors or receivers of revelation are also light, and we are to function as light. , say that we are the light of the world. That which is set on a hill cannot be hidden, so we are to let our light shine before men so that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.

9.          Believers are to put on the armor of light. That is, the armor of protection that comes from light or divine revelation. When we study God’s Word it gives us the protection we need to live in the midst of a dark and pagan world. Only from the Word of God do we receive the armor of light. NASB “The night is almost gone, and the day is near. Therefore let us lay aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

10.   We need to realize that Satan is a master counterfeiter. He counterfeits this light and masquerades as an angel or messenger of light. NASB “No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light.” So the only way we can have discernment of what is true light and what is the false light is to know the Word of God.         

So Jesus came in that first appearance into Galilee, and it is described as a light shining in darkness, illuminating the people who sat in darkness. And this is the same ministry today through the Word of God. Through both the living Word and the written Word we can know truth, and that truth is what enables us to live life in the world on the basis of reality so that we can experience the fullness of life that God has given to us.

Lord, Titles for the

Titles for the Lord Jesus Christ in Revelation   Rev.176

1. He is called “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth” (Rev. 1:5)

2. The Son of Man (Rev. 1:13)

3. The First and the Last (Rev. 1:17)

3. The Living One (Rev. 1:18)

4. The Son of God (Rev. 2:18)

5. “He who is holy, who is true” (Rev. 3:7)

6. “The Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the Beginning of the creation of God” (Rev. 3:14)

7. “The Lion that is from the tribe of Judah, the Root of David” (Rev. 5:5)

8. The Lamb (Rev. 6:1, 16; 7:17; 8:1)

9. Faithful and True (Rev. 19:11)

10. The Word of God (Rev. 19:13) and

11. “King of Kings, and Lord of Lords” (Rev. 19:16)

Rev. 1:7, “Behold, He is coming with clouds, and every eye will see Him, even they who pierced Him. And all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him. Even so, Amen.”

Rev. 11:12, “And they heard a loud voice from heaven saying to them, ‘Come up here.’ And they ascended to heaven in a cloud, and their enemies saw them.”

Rev. 14:14, “Then I looked, and behold, a white cloud, and on the cloud sat One like the Son of Man, having on His head a golden crown, and in His hand a sharp sickle.

Rev. 14:15, “And another angel came out of the temple, crying with a loud voice to Him who sat on the cloud, ‘Thrust in Your sickle and reap, for the time has come for You to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’

Rev. 14:16, “So He who sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped.”

Gen. 9:13, “I set My rainbow in the cloud, and it shall be for the sign of the covenant between Me and the earth. Gen. 9:14, “It shall be, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the rainbow shall be seen in the cloud;” Gen. 9:16, “The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.”

Matt. 17:2, “and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light.”

Rev. 1:16, “He had in His right hand seven stars, out of His mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and His countenance was like the sun shining in its strength.”

Rev. 1:15, “His feet were like fine brass, as if refined in a furnace, and His voice as the sound of many waters;”

Rev. 10:2, “He had a little book open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land,”

Deut. 11:24, “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the River Euphrates, even to the Western Sea, shall be your territory.”

Lost Tribes, Twelve

Twelve Lost Tribes

RD-Revelation Lesson 164b

Love, Understanding reciprocal

Understanding reciprocal love helps us to handle unrealistic expectations in life

RD/1 John/075

Many people feel that they have never been loved or accepted the way that they want to be loved or accepted; they haven’t been treated the way that they think they ought to be treated. This is often used as a justification for certain activity—“Because I was never loved; I was never treated right.” Unrealistic expectation is a trap that leads to self-absorption, to self-pity, to all kinds of mental attitude sins and creates a trap that leads to fragmentation of the soul. It begins as a child, a teenager or a young adult when we begin to think that we should be treated differently from the way we are. The solution to this is having a view of reality based on doctrine. The view of reality is that people are always going to fail us and whether the failure is real or perceived we have to come to grips with the fact that there will always be disappointments in life and things will never be the way we think they ought to be. There will always be problems with people because people are sinners and we can never base our happiness, our stability, our future, our success, or anything on how other people respond to us. Once we become people-dependent we have paved the road to a self-destruction, unhappiness and misery.

Unrealistic expectation (because we are divorced from reality) in combination with an ignorance of biblical truth destroys the focus of the spiritual life. Unrealistic expectation always puts the emphasis on disappointment and loss—on what I don’t have, what I missed out on, what people didn’t do for me. Motivation then comes to get people to fulfil our expectations. We want to manipulate people to do what we want them to do, expect them to do. We think that happiness comes from getting them to resolve our disappointments and to fulfil our expectations. If that is our motivation then that is going to filter through to every single relationship we have. It will affect marriage because there will not be real love but a love that becomes a way to manipulate the other person to fulfil expectations of how we think we ought to be treated.

The result of this is perpetual carnality in life and the only solution is confession of the sin of arrogance and self-absorption.

We have to realise that only God can love us the way we ought to be loved because God’s love is based on His integrity and His immutability. People don’t have integrity or immutability. God’s love is based on His character and not on who we are or what we do. Furthermore, God’s love is not emotional; it is not based on circumstances; it doesn’t fluctuate, it is always the same. It is only by understanding God’s love and what he has provided for us that we can, in turn, have real stability and happiness in life and quit having that frantic search to be loved and to be treated the way we think we ought to be treated.

When we respond to the doctrinal principle that God loves us in a perfect way that never changes, and that God loves us the way we ought to be loved, then we will be able to move into spiritual maturity and begin to have a measure of emotional stability, and begin to learn what it means to share the happiness of Jesus Christ. The result of that is that it changes the way we relate to other people.

When we are grounded in the perfect love of God then we are able to handle the disappointments, the fluctuations in life. Therefore we are able to genuinely love other people because there is a character built in us that is the character of Christ. That is evidenced by how we treat other believers, and this is the point in 1 John 4:20 NASB “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” We learn to love God on the basis of doctrine. That transforms our souls, and only then are we able to love the brother whom we have seen.

Love: Definition of

Trying to understand a definition of love   RD/1 John/022

1.       Working definition: Love is a mental attitude, not an emotion, which desires the absolute best for its object. There are several things to note about that as a working definition. a) As a mental attitude we are emphasising stability, not emotion which is instability. It is a decision, not just something that happens to us, it is not based on circumstances. “Best” is a value term. That means we have to have objectivity, something in the soul that enables us to understand what is best and what is worst. Some people would say that is awfully arrogant to think that somebody can determine what is best for somebody else. But if we are operating on an external absolute that is provided by the Word of God then we know what the best is. We know what the good is, and only on the basis of God’s revelation of what is best is can we make honest objective decisions towards anyone in our lives. b) Love unctions in different ways and in different capacities. There is romantic love, sexual love, parental love, the love of children for parents, sibling love, love between friends, love for God. So when Jesus said we ought to love one another, what kind of love is he talking about?

2.       Love is notoriously difficult to define. Most of us start with some kind of feeling, emotion, experience. Even Scripture never gives us a definition of love; instead it describes its characteristics, illustrates it through parables, and models it through the examples of Christ. Therefore we can know what love is and what it isn’t, even though it might be difficult to encapsulate it in one simple definition.

3.       Webster’s Dictionary: “It emphasises the attraction, desire or affection felt for a person who arouses delight or admiration, or elicits tenderness, sympathetic interest or benevolence. Secondly, it means warm attachment, enthusiasm or devotion. Third, the benevolence attributed to God resembling a father’s affection for his children. (Notice, when it comes to God even Webster’s falls short) Do these definitions fit with God’s love for the world in John 3:16? No, they don’t.

4.       What is the solution? There are two categories or expressions of divine love that manifest themselves. Scripture talks about the love of God and yet it expresses itself in different ways. The primary thing we think about the love of God is God’s personal love. Personal love is the expression or dedication or devotion to an object with whom God has rapport, with whom God has something in common, something of affinity. God has personal love for another person who is compatible with Him. That exists only in the Trinity. God is eternal, He has always loved and been loved. This is one of the things that sets Christianity apart from every other religion in human history. Christianity is monotheistic but Christianity is a Trinitarian monotheism. Islam is a Unitarian monotheism. There can’t be love unless there is an object of love; that is the point. Only in a Trinitarian God is there an eternal object of God’s love. The second dimension of God’s love is His impersonal love. Impersonal means that there does not have to be a personal relationship in order for this love to function. For example, John 3:16 says that God so loved the world, but God did not have a relationship with all those unbelievers in the world; yet God loved them. That is why it is impersonal. It is also unconditional love. Impersonal emphasises the fact that a personal relationship and personal knowledge is not necessary for the function of the love. Unconditional emphasises the fact that it doesn’t involve a condition. The greatest example of divine impersonal love is the cross. God’s love is what motivated His action. Love is not an emotional term.

5.       It is His love, His personal love and His impersonal love, that is the pattern, the model, the prototype of the new commandment. It is His love that we are to emulate in our lives. We are to love one another as Christ loved us. John 13:34, 35 NASB “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” God does not mandate impossibilities; Jesus mandate means that it is possible. But we can’t do it on our own, we can’t do it from our sin nature, we can only do it if God also gives us the Holy Spirit who is the one who produces that love in us. Galatians 5:21, 22. It is a unique kind of love that cannot be manufactured on our own and can’t be something that the unbeliever produces.

6.       Divine impersonal love has its characteristics, but human impersonal love has the following characteristics: a) Impersonal love is impossible, but John doesn’t mandate the impossible without providing the means of accomplishment; b) Impersonal love is the hallmark, the trademark of the believer. It is more than anything else our visible testimony and is a summation of the Christian way of life; c) Impersonal love is the basis for problem solving in human relations. In a relationship there is always need for impersonal love; d) Impersonal love is the ability to accept all people as they are, worts and all. It is both the absence of mental attitude sins, the absence of prejudice, and the presence of genuine concern, regard and solicitousness for even those who may be treating us poorly. It is not just the absence of sin, it is the presence of doing something for that person that is positive and beneficial and in their best regards; f) Impersonal love will have no stability or strength without grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. That is why those two elements are foundational; g) Impersonal love develops the capacity for life, love and happiness.   

Matthew 22:34-36 NASB “But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him {a question,} testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’” Notice, this lawyer doesn’t know what the great commandment is. Then Jesus summarises the Law. [37] “And He said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. [38] This is the great and foremost commandment. [39] The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ [40] On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets’.”

In Luke we read of a similar situation but there are some important differences. Luke 10:25 NASB “And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” This lawyer already knows the summation of the two great commandments, so this is probably after the Matthew 25 incident. [26] “And He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?’ [27] And he answered, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ [28] And He said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE.’ [29] But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” The motive is not to learn anything, it is self-justification. [30] “Jesus replied and said, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. [31] And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. [32] Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. [33] But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, [34] and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on {them;} and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.” With the Samaritan, this is impersonal love. He shows compassion, he is motivated to do something positive for this person. He doesn’t know him, he hasn’t a clue who he is; in fact he represents a group of people who hate him. It cost the Samaritan something, and he did it not on the basis of who and what the victim was but because of what is in his own soul. [35] “On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ [36] Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ {hands?} [37] And he said, ‘The one who showed mercy toward him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same’.”

So there we see a parable that illustrates what impersonal love is. It is not simply the absence of mental attitude sins but it is the presence of something positive and beneficial, doing something good that may even cost us something in the process.

There is a command in Leviticus 19:18 to reference here. NASB “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.” That is the Old testament version, but there is a higher New Testament version which is John 13:34, 35. The Leviticus passage was addressed to Israel, believer and unbeliever were expected to fulfil this mandate. John 13 is addressed to the church only, believer only; not everyone, but to love one another. It is directed primarily toward believers. The command in both instances is to love. Leviticus 19:18 is to love your neighbour, i.e. anyone in your periphery, where as John 13:34, 35 is addressed to one another, every believer, even those who are obnoxious. The point of comparison, in Leviticus the command is to love your neighbour as yourself. Without the Holy Spirit, without the example of Christ coming at the cross the highest example that every person loves himself—Ephesians 5, no man hates his own flesh, etc. It is a general principle: everybody takes care of himself. But this is saying don’t just put yourself first, put somebody else first. That was the best that could be done in the Old Testament without the indwelling and filling of God the Holy Spirit and without the model of Jesus Christ. But they failed, they couldn’t even do that. In the New Testament there is an even higher standard, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. None of us can do that, it can only come through a supernatural encounter on the basis of God the Holy Spirit. That is why loving one another with impersonal love is crucial to the spiritual life, and it indicates the advance in spiritual maturity.

Love: Definition of

Trying to understand a definition of love   RD/1 John/022

1.       Working definition: Love is a mental attitude, not an emotion, which desires the absolute best for its object. There are several things to note about that as a working definition. a) As a mental attitude we are emphasising stability, not emotion which is instability. It is a decision, not just something that happens to us, it is not based on circumstances. “Best” is a value term. That means we have to have objectivity, something in the soul that enables us to understand what is best and what is worst. Some people would say that is awfully arrogant to think that somebody can determine what is best for somebody else. But if we are operating on an external absolute that is provided by the Word of God then we know what the best is. We know what the good is, and only on the basis of God’s revelation of what is best is can we make honest objective decisions towards anyone in our lives. b) Love unctions in different ways and in different capacities. There is romantic love, sexual love, parental love, the love of children for parents, sibling love, love between friends, love for God. So when Jesus said we ought to love one another, what kind of love is he talking about?

2.       Love is notoriously difficult to define. Most of us start with some kind of feeling, emotion, experience. Even Scripture never gives us a definition of love; instead it describes its characteristics, illustrates it through parables, and models it through the examples of Christ. Therefore we can know what love is and what it isn’t, even though it might be difficult to encapsulate it in one simple definition.

3.       Webster’s Dictionary: “It emphasises the attraction, desire or affection felt for a person who arouses delight or admiration, or elicits tenderness, sympathetic interest or benevolence. Secondly, it means warm attachment, enthusiasm or devotion. Third, the benevolence attributed to God resembling a father’s affection for his children. (Notice, when it comes to God even Webster’s falls short) Do these definitions fit with God’s love for the world in John 3:16? No, they don’t.

4.       What is the solution? There are two categories or expressions of divine love that manifest themselves. Scripture talks about the love of God and yet it expresses itself in different ways. The primary thing we think about the love of God is God’s personal love. Personal love is the expression or dedication or devotion to an object with whom God has rapport, with whom God has something in common, something of affinity. God has personal love for another person who is compatible with Him. That exists only in the Trinity. God is eternal, He has always loved and been loved. This is one of the things that sets Christianity apart from every other religion in human history. Christianity is monotheistic but Christianity is a Trinitarian monotheism. Islam is a Unitarian monotheism. There can’t be love unless there is an object of love; that is the point. Only in a Trinitarian God is there an eternal object of God’s love. The second dimension of God’s love is His impersonal love. Impersonal means that there does not have to be a personal relationship in order for this love to function. For example, John 3:16 says that God so loved the world, but God did not have a relationship with all those unbelievers in the world; yet God loved them. That is why it is impersonal. It is also unconditional love. Impersonal emphasises the fact that a personal relationship and personal knowledge is not necessary for the function of the love. Unconditional emphasises the fact that it doesn’t involve a condition. The greatest example of divine impersonal love is the cross. God’s love is what motivated His action. Love is not an emotional term.

5.       It is His love, His personal love and His impersonal love, that is the pattern, the model, the prototype of the new commandment. It is His love that we are to emulate in our lives. We are to love one another as Christ loved us. John 13:34, 35 NASB “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” God does not mandate impossibilities; Jesus mandate means that it is possible. But we can’t do it on our own, we can’t do it from our sin nature, we can only do it if God also gives us the Holy Spirit who is the one who produces that love in us. Galatians 5:21, 22. It is a unique kind of love that cannot be manufactured on our own and can’t be something that the unbeliever produces.

6.       Divine impersonal love has its characteristics, but human impersonal love has the following characteristics: a) Impersonal love is impossible, but John doesn’t mandate the impossible without providing the means of accomplishment; b) Impersonal love is the hallmark, the trademark of the believer. It is more than anything else our visible testimony and is a summation of the Christian way of life; c) Impersonal love is the basis for problem solving in human relations. In a relationship there is always need for impersonal love; d) Impersonal love is the ability to accept all people as they are, worts and all. It is both the absence of mental attitude sins, the absence of prejudice, and the presence of genuine concern, regard and solicitousness for even those who may be treating us poorly. It is not just the absence of sin, it is the presence of doing something for that person that is positive and beneficial and in their best regards; f) Impersonal love will have no stability or strength without grace orientation and doctrinal orientation. That is why those two elements are foundational; g) Impersonal love develops the capacity for life, love and happiness.   

Matthew 22:34-36 NASB “But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him {a question,} testing Him, ‘Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?’” Notice, this lawyer doesn’t know what the great commandment is. Then Jesus summarises the Law. [37] “And He said to him, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND. [38] This is the great and foremost commandment. [39] The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ [40] On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets’.”

In Luke we read of a similar situation but there are some important differences. Luke 10:25 NASB “And a lawyer stood up and put Him to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’” This lawyer already knows the summation of the two great commandments, so this is probably after the Matthew 25 incident. [26] “And He said to him, ‘What is written in the Law? How does it read to you?’ [27] And he answered, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND; AND YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ [28] And He said to him, ‘You have answered correctly; DO THIS AND YOU WILL LIVE.’ [29] But wishing to justify himself, he said to Jesus, ‘And who is my neighbor?’” The motive is not to learn anything, it is self-justification. [30] “Jesus replied and said, ‘A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among robbers, and they stripped him and beat him, and went away leaving him half dead. [31] And by chance a priest was going down on that road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. [32] Likewise a Levite also, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. [33] But a Samaritan, who was on a journey, came upon him; and when he saw him, he felt compassion, [34] and came to him and bandaged up his wounds, pouring oil and wine on {them;} and he put him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn and took care of him.” With the Samaritan, this is impersonal love. He shows compassion, he is motivated to do something positive for this person. He doesn’t know him, he hasn’t a clue who he is; in fact he represents a group of people who hate him. It cost the Samaritan something, and he did it not on the basis of who and what the victim was but because of what is in his own soul. [35] “On the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper and said, ‘Take care of him; and whatever more you spend, when I return I will repay you.’ [36] Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell into the robbers’ {hands?} [37] And he said, ‘The one who showed mercy toward him.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go and do the same’.”

So there we see a parable that illustrates what impersonal love is. It is not simply the absence of mental attitude sins but it is the presence of something positive and beneficial, doing something good that may even cost us something in the process.

There is a command in Leviticus 19:18 to reference here. NASB “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the LORD.” That is the Old testament version, but there is a higher New Testament version which is John 13:34, 35. The Leviticus passage was addressed to Israel, believer and unbeliever were expected to fulfil this mandate. John 13 is addressed to the church only, believer only; not everyone, but to love one another. It is directed primarily toward believers. The command in both instances is to love. Leviticus 19:18 is to love your neighbour, i.e. anyone in your periphery, where as John 13:34, 35 is addressed to one another, every believer, even those who are obnoxious. The point of comparison, in Leviticus the command is to love your neighbour as yourself. Without the Holy Spirit, without the example of Christ coming at the cross the highest example that every person loves himself—Ephesians 5, no man hates his own flesh, etc. It is a general principle: everybody takes care of himself. But this is saying don’t just put yourself first, put somebody else first. That was the best that could be done in the Old Testament without the indwelling and filling of God the Holy Spirit and without the model of Jesus Christ. But they failed, they couldn’t even do that. In the New Testament there is an even higher standard, we are to love one another as Christ has loved us. None of us can do that, it can only come through a supernatural encounter on the basis of God the Holy Spirit. That is why loving one another with impersonal love is crucial to the spiritual life, and it indicates the advance in spiritual maturity.

Love: Eight Characteristics of God's Love

Eight Characteristics of God's Love  RD/James/040

So we are isolating eight different characteristics that describe the kind of love that God demonstrated to us at the cross, and this is going to be added to our understanding of impersonal/ unconditional love as not merely being an absence of mental attitude sins and having a relaxed mental attitude and having an attitude of graciousness, but it is going to have these characteristics as well:

1)      It is initiating. God’s love initiated the solution, not man. Initiation means that God’s love took charge to provide the perfect solution necessary to restore the relationship that would be broken by Adam’s original sin. This initiating love took place in eternity past through antecedent grace. Antecedent refers to that which is prior to, that which precedes. This refers to the initial act of God’s unmerited favour in outlining the plan of salvation.

2)      It is aggressive action. It asserts itself with confidence and boldness. Why can impersonal love do this? Because it does not operate from a position of weakness that is threatened by rejection. The problem with personal love is that if our personal love is based on conditions of acceptance and intimacy with its object, and that object of personal love rejects us and there is that element of contingency there, then we will feel rejected and hurt and so there is always that tendency to want to hold back a little bit in terms of self-protection. But we can be aggressive in impersonal love because we are not trying to curry favour or generate approbation or find security in the response of someone else. Because of God’s omniscience He knew the entire problem and on the basis of that He provided everything necessary to resolve the problem. So because our strength is in the work of God, who He is and our relationship to Him, then our relationship to other people in terms of love can be aggressive because we are not looking to them to meet any of our needs. We are relying upon God and that puts us in a position of strength.

3)      It is characterized by humility. Humility is based upon grace orientation. It does not seek its own personal glory but takes on the attitude of a servant to do whatsoever is necessary. In the case of God it included incarnation, the voluntary restriction of the use of divine attributes in order to fulfil the plan of God. It involved sacrifice, the undeserved imputation of human sin in order to solve the problem of sin in the human race. Remember, the suffering that Jesus Christ encountered on the cross was more intense, more agonizing, more excruciating that any suffering, any rejection, any heartache, torment or pain than you or I can ever imagine. And He was sustained through the filling of God the Holy Spirit, and that is our example. He demonstrated that these principles, stress-busters, problem-solving devices, work and can handle any situation.

4)      It is characterized by intensity. There was a zealous determination on the part of God to achieve the goal of salvation and to overcome all obstacles. Since God is omnipotent He is able to accomplish whatever is necessary to fulfil His perfect plan for the human race. Unconditional, impersonal love has an intensity about it.

5)      It is faithful or steadfastly loyal. Our loyalty is not to the object of our love, it is to God. God’s loyalty is to His own character, to His own integrity, to the promises He made to man in terms of salvation. God strongly desires for all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

6)      It is consecrated. This means that it is set apart for the purpose of God’s glory. That is why we have impersonal love for all mankind. It exemplifies in us the impersonal love that God has for all mankind, and it brings glory and honor to Him. Jesus Christ, in terms of God’s impersonal love for all mankind, is solemnly set apart for the purpose of being the exclusive means of salvation for the church. As such, Jesus Christ is loyal to the plan and purposes of God and He set Himself apart despite all obstacles and distractions to provide salvation for every human being. Secondly, His goal is to bring every believer to maturity in Christ.

7)      It is dedicated. Dedication means that Jesus Christ committed Himself t the task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification despite the pain and suffering that it would bring Him.

8)      It is devoted. This means to give or apply one’s time, intention and self entirely to a particular activity, cause or person. The priority for Jesus Christ was to go to the cross and to endure the suffering in order to pay the penalty for our sins.

Love: Eight Characteristics of God's Love

‎ 

‎Eight Characteristics of God's Love  RD/James/040

‎ 

‎So we are isolating eight different characteristics that describe the kind of love that God demonstrated to us at the cross, and this is going to be added to our understanding of impersonal/ unconditional love as not merely being an absence of mental attitude sins and having a relaxed mental attitude and having an attitude of graciousness, but it is going to have these characteristics as well:

‎ 

‎1)      It is initiating. God’s love initiated the solution, not man. Initiation means that God’s love took charge to provide the perfect solution necessary to restore the relationship that would be broken by Adam’s original sin. This initiating love took place in eternity past through antecedent grace. Antecedent refers to that which is prior to, that which precedes. This refers to the initial act of God’s unmerited favour in outlining the plan of salvation.

‎ 

‎2)      It is aggressive action. It asserts itself with confidence and boldness. Why can impersonal love do this? Because it does not operate from a position of weakness that is threatened by rejection. The problem with personal love is that if our personal love is based on conditions of acceptance and intimacy with its object, and that object of personal love rejects us and there is that element of contingency there, then we will feel rejected and hurt and so there is always that tendency to want to hold back a little bit in terms of self-protection. But we can be aggressive in impersonal love because we are not trying to curry favour or generate approbation or find security in the response of someone else. Because of God’s omniscience He knew the entire problem and on the basis of that He provided everything necessary to resolve the problem. So because our strength is in the work of God, who He is and our relationship to Him, then our relationship to other people in terms of love can be aggressive because we are not looking to them to meet any of our needs. We are relying upon God and that puts us in a position of strength.

‎ 

‎3)      It is characterized by humility. Humility is based upon grace orientation. It does not seek its own personal glory but takes on the attitude of a servant to do whatsoever is necessary. In the case of God it included incarnation, the voluntary restriction of the use of divine attributes in order to fulfil the plan of God. It involved sacrifice, the undeserved imputation of human sin in order to solve the problem of sin in the human race. Remember, the suffering that Jesus Christ encountered on the cross was more intense, more agonizing, more excruciating that any suffering, any rejection, any heartache, torment or pain than you or I can ever imagine. And He was sustained through the filling of God the Holy Spirit, and that is our example. He demonstrated that these principles, stress-busters, problem-solving devices, work and can handle any situation.

‎ 

‎4)      It is characterized by intensity. There was a zealous determination on the part of God to achieve the goal of salvation and to overcome all obstacles. Since God is omnipotent He is able to accomplish whatever is necessary to fulfil His perfect plan for the human race. Unconditional, impersonal love has an intensity about it.

‎ 

‎5)      It is faithful or steadfastly loyal. Our loyalty is not to the object of our love, it is to God. God’s loyalty is to His own character, to His own integrity, to the promises He made to man in terms of salvation. God strongly desires for all men to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.

‎ 

‎6)      It is consecrated. This means that it is set apart for the purpose of God’s glory. That is why we have impersonal love for all mankind. It exemplifies in us the impersonal love that God has for all mankind, and it brings glory and honor to Him. Jesus Christ, in terms of God’s impersonal love for all mankind, is solemnly set apart for the purpose of being the exclusive means of salvation for the church. As such, Jesus Christ is loyal to the plan and purposes of God and He set Himself apart despite all obstacles and distractions to provide salvation for every human being. Secondly, His goal is to bring every believer to maturity in Christ.

‎ 

‎7)      It is dedicated. Dedication means that Jesus Christ committed Himself t the task of service, sacrifice, salvation and sanctification despite the pain and suffering that it would bring Him.

‎ 

‎8)      It is devoted. This means to give or apply one’s time, intention and self entirely to a particular activity, cause or person. The priority for Jesus Christ was to go to the cross and to endure the suffering in order to pay the penalty for our sins.

Love: Observations

Love: Observations   RD/1 John/023

We are to love one another as Christ loved the church, and that brings us to some important observations.  

a)      Love is objective, not subjective, and it has an objective model. It is not based on our perceptions, our feelings, or the circumstances of the moment; it is based on an objective model that is available to all and we all look to that model to understand what love is.

b)      Love is not something that is represented by symbols.

c)      It is not emotion. When we look at the command to love one another as Christ loved us, Jesus didn’t just come down with a bunch of goo and cry all over us. It is not sentimentality or sone feeling of warm fuzzies. It has to do with action, integrity and virtue.

d)      It is based on character. It is based on virtue and integrity that goes beyond anything that can be produced in the normal human realm. It is developed through walking by the Holy Spirit and based upon the example of God’s love for fallen, rebellious mankind.

e)      The commandment to love one another challenges the unbeliever. The unbeliever can’t do it.

f)       John 13:35 indicates that the world knows, that they have an inherent understanding of that, and when they see this kind of love operational in a believer it strikes a chord in their soul and they respond to it. They might react to it if they are in negative volition, but if they are positive they will respond to it. it is the greatest evidence of Christianity that there is.

g)      This is the highest apologetic, a demonstration of the veracity of Christianity.

John 15:12 NASB “This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. [13] Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” That brings in a sacrificial element, that one is willing to put one’s personal life, personal agenda, personal ambitions aside and do that which is best for another person. [14] “You are My friends if you do what I command you.” That is not legalism, it is simply showing that there is a closer relationship there than simply impersonal love. Obedience to God is the evidence of our love for Him. [15] “No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. [16] You did not choose Me but I chose you…” This is not referring to the doctrine of election but the choice of these eleven as His disciples. “… and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and {that} your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you. [17] This I command you, that you love one another.” This is an astounding concept in the New Testament.

The starting point is always the cross, so we have to look at the characteristics demonstrated at the cross if we are going to begin to understand the kind of love that should characterise our lives.

It is an initiating love, it is not a love that waits for the other person to initiate. God the Father’s love for us began in eternity past before God created any creature. 1 John 4:19 NASB “We love, because He first loved us.”

It is an aggressive love. God seeks us out. He asserts His love with boldness and confidence in human history. He doesn’t operate from a position of weakness that is trying to curry favour or generate approbation. It is a love that is directed toward achieving an object, and that object is not merely salvation of the lost but also conforming us to the image of His Son and removing every vestige of sin and the curse of sin from mankind.

It is a love that is humble. It is not an arrogant, self-seeking love. He is not seeking his own personal glory. Jesus Christ said He came not to be served but to serve and to give His life a ransom for many. It is a love that is seeking to serve its object with what is best for the object, not a love that is seeking self-glorification.

It is a love that is intense; it is not a superficial or shallow love. It is a zealous determination to achieve the goal of salvation despite all obstacles, even so much that when Jesus and the disciples left the upper room to go the garden of Gethsemane Jesus told the disciples to bring a couple of swords with them. He wanted His disciples armed. He wanted to makes sure that no matter what Satan did nothing could stop Him from dying the kind of death He had to die on the cross.

It is a love that is consecrated. Jesus Christ set Himself apart to a task and He was not going to be distracted from that task.  

It is a love that is characterised by dedication. Jesus Christ committed Himself to the task of service, sacrifice, salvation, and our sanctification. He lived His life based on the filling of the Holy Spirit in order to be the prototype for our spiritual life in the church age.

It is a devoted love. Devotion means to give or apply one’s time, attention and self to a task. He gave of Himself one hundred per cent to the task of our salvation.

If these characteristics were part of His impersonal love for us then they are to be a part of our impersonal love for those who do not deserve it, those who may be hostile to us, and those who hate us.

Mankind

Mankind    Gen 002

Finally, we learn 8 things about mankind.

1)      Man is created with a mortal body framed from the dust of the earth.

2)      Man’s immaterial nature comes directly from the breath of God.

3)      Human life is composed of biological life, the physical life formed from the chemicals of the soil, plus soul life, the immaterial life that is breathed into man by God. This makes man in the image of God. He is unique from all other creatures because his life comes from God.

4)      Man is the image of God, and this term refers to his function, not his form—his function and his fellowship with God. He is to serve God and obey God, and he is to rule over creation and administer the kingdom for God.

5)      Man was created male and female and they are to compliment each other. The man is the leader and the woman is to assist him in fulfilling the mission that God has given them.

6)      Man is created perfect, but his disobedience destroys the perfection of the universe and brings horrendous consequences upon himself and the universe. His sin doesn’t just affect himself, it doesn’t just bring a fall to man, it affects the animal kingdom, nature, everything in creation. That one bad decision that Adam made reverberates throughout the entire universe.

7)      Man now has a disposition for evil, toward rebellion, toward self-sufficiency and autonomy. Man is a rebel against his creator and seeks to be like the Most High, following in the footsteps of Lucifer.

8)      That means that man is in desperate need of a savior. But it is God in His initiative who is going to provide a savior and provide salvation.

Marginalized Christianity

“How did we get where we are today where Christianity seems to be the enemy?”    RD/Heb. 049b

It has been marginalized and pushed out even further than the margins.  We live in a society today, a culture today that is 180 degrees opposite of where it was 150 years ago.  What happened?  I am planning to have a much lengthier series on this some time in the fall or next winter. 

   1. What we call 19th century religious liberalism or 19th century protestant liberalism had its roots in the Enlightenment of the 18th century.  In the Enlightenment autonomous human reason is elevated above any kind of religion.  It is a reaction to the mystical superstition that dominated in the Middle Ages.  Even the terminology that we use here reflects this pagan opposition to Christianity.  How did most people refer to the Middle Ages?  Those were the Dark Ages.  They were dark.  But then what happened?  We had a shift to the emphasis on human reason and experience and it became the Enlightenment.  So you see there is a hidden agenda there that when Christianity dominated things was dark.  But they weren’t dark.  But you were taught that in school.  That is what most people are taught.  But there was a tremendous amount of learning going on.  It was the Christians that kept learning alive.   It was the monasteries that copied the Scriptures and copies the ancient documents.  There was a tremendous amount of scholarship and thought that went on.  You had brilliant minds.  I am not saying that they were right theologically.  You had brilliant minds, people like Thomas Aquinas who if you have ever read his writings, they are very difficult for the average product of an American secular education to follow.  He would dictate 4 or 5 of these books at the same time to four or five different scribes.    He would dictate a paragraph here and then a paragraph in the next book to the next scribe and then another paragraph to the next guy and then another one to a fourth scribe and then he would go back to the first one.  He never lost track.  I mean these people were brilliant.   And they were incredibly educated.  One of the problems theologically was that they were operating on Aristotelian or platonic presuppositions that created problems.  Just as a side note that is what the problem was. You typically hear a misconstruction of the whole Galileo episode.  That it is science versus religion.   No!  It was new science verses old science.  The Roman Catholic Church at that time wasn’t operating on a biblical viewpoint.  They were operating on an Aristotelian viewpoint of science and the universe.  The Aristotelian view was geocentric.  The earth was the center of the solar system and the center of the universe as opposed to what was coming up from new science which was saying that the solar system is heliocentric and the solar system isn’t the center of the universe.   It had nothing to do with the Bible.  It had to do with the fact that the Roman Catholic Church had compromised with Aristotelian empiricism.  Now a new form of empiricism was coming up in the Enlightenment.  That is what the conflict was.  The Bible doesn’t make a statement regarding geocentrism.  It doesn’t.  They got that out of Aristotelianism.  Anyhow you have the Enlightenment that develops in the 17th and 18th century so that human reason and empiricism become the final authority or the determiner of truth.  There is an implicit rejection that God speaks to man. 

   2. This reaches its culmination in the philosophical shift that took place in the writings of a German philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant.   What Immanuel Kant said was that man can’t know things as they are objectively.  He can only know his impressions of things.  Therefore knowledge is no longer objectively outside of man.  Up until this point everyone believed that there was truth – that it existed objectively and externally.  They didn’t agree on how you knew it or how you got there.  Everybody believed that there is external, objective, verifiable knowable truth.  But Kant said, “No.  We don’t know truth.  It’s not out there.  All we know is what we see of truth.   All we know is our impression.”  So you have your impression and someone else has their impression.  It is the old analogy of the six blind men, each one feeling a different part of the elephant.  That was really a Hindu illustration.  One guy feels a tail and says that it feels like a snake.  One guy feels a leg and says it feels like a tree.  Another one feels a side and it feels like a wall.  They don’t know what it is.  All they know is their impression of truth.  This destroys any basis for objective knowledge.   It just ripples through the intellectual community from Germany all through Europe and across the pond to the US.  Man can’t know objective knowledge anymore.  That affects everything.  They are in awe of this. This is so intellectual.  This is so wonderful.  Of course it destroys any absolute truth from Scripture because you can’t know anything but your impressions.  So you can’t know God.  You can’t know anything that exists in what he called the realm of the numinal(?).  You can only know the realm of phenomenal which is what you experience. 

   3. Knowledge was no longer objective; it was now subjective.  So ultimately where this goes is that truth becomes relative.  You have your truth and somebody else has their truth.  How do you know if there is any absolute overriding universal truth?   Well, you don’t. You just have your impressions.  It leads to the complete breakdown of having any kind of absolute meaning or unifying truth or any unifying knowledge where people can know and make absolute decisions.  Once you destroy the basis for absolutes, then all culture starts to break down which is where we end up with today in post modernism.  We are getting ahead of ourselves. 

        4. So truth in the Kantian understanding of knowledge comes from within the human mind.  That is rationalism.   But when rationalism goes to seed it also becomes mysticism.  You get into the later development of the 19th century.  You start getting the intrusion of mystical ideas from people like Hegel and Kierkegaard and other philosophers at that time.   

   5. In this whole maelstrom of intellectual ferment that is going on in Europe in the 19th century you have the rise of four great intellectual novelties that takes place.  It is interesting that they all pop up on the landscape within about 20 years of each other.  Do you think that is coincidence?  No, that isn’t coincidence.  It happens because the center of truth has shifted from outside man to inside man.  That is why they called Kant’s thinking the Copernican revolution in philosophy.  The center of reality centered from external objectivity to internal subjectivity.  Within 20 years you have the rise of Darwinism and evolution; Herbert Spencer and modern sociology; Sigmund Freud and modern psychology and Karl Marx and economics and Marxism.  These guys all knew each other and read each other and cross pollinated ideas.  It all comes from a foundation that rejects God and rejects the idea that the universe, the world, the systems of the universe and the institutions of society are determined by a Creator God.  Once autonomous reason takes over in academia.  Then it starts to impact every discipline of thought from the obvious ones here.  It affects economics.  It affects law. It affects politics.  It affects your social sciences.  Everything shifts radically in the late 19th century. This of course affects their view of Christianity.  The affect of this on Christianity is to cause a rejection of revelation as objective and infallible.  You can’t know anything objectively anymore according to this Kantian shift.  Therefore Christianity is just another religious system.  It is just like Buddhism or Hinduism or any other religious system.  It may be a little more civilized, but it is just another option.  Darwinism comes along and Herbert Spencer and sociology and these religions evolved.  So none is more important than others.  Then you have a rejection of miracles, the virgin birth and resurrection.  These are all superstitious myths.  They are too unbelievable for modern minds.    Now that modern man understands knowledge as developed by Kant, we know that you can’t know truth.  There aren’t any absolutes so we can’t live in that superstitious dark mentality that God has spoken to man any more. We can’t live like that.  We have become too sophisticated.  We have become too modern.  So this became known as the modernist movement. One affect of this was to remove God and the Bible from having anything to say about man’s intellectual life and thus how he thinks about his environment – social, political, economic, legal, aesthetic, music, theatre, drama, literature, science.  God no longer speaks to this.  Up to this point Christians might have differed in their conclusions or how they got there, but they all believed that the Bible spoke to every area of life.  Now all of a sudden the Bible doesn’t speak to these areas of life.  We need reason and empiricism to do that, not the Bible.  If you go back to the Bible to define law, freedom, and authority then you belong in the Dark Ages.  You are some sort of ante-deluvian dinosaur.  You are not in the modern world anymore.  All of a sudden what the Bible addressed shrunk.  It talks about you and your relationship to God.   That’s all it talks about.  It talks about your spiritual life and that’s it.  So this becomes very subjective.  It impacts everything.  By the end of the 20th century it impacts all kinds of concepts about worship and teaching.   You couldn’t go to a church today on a Sunday morning and hear a sermon on a Biblical theology of economics.  You could 400 years ago, but you won’t today.  If you found any place like that there would be one person sitting out there in the pew.  You couldn’t go somewhere and find a pastor teaching Biblical theology of art and music.  It just isn’t done.  People won’t stand for it.  They aren’t trained intellectually to handle this any more.  We are all the products of a wonderful public education state funded system.  Another consequence of all of this is that man’s problems are no longer viewed as ultimately spiritual.  The problems we have with society, with prejudice, with poverty, with war that we no longer view these as having an ultimate source in a spiritual problem of man’s separation from God.  Rather than making the primary solution the cross, the primary solution becomes “lets get involved socially”.  This is what happened in the 19th century with the social gospel that we need to bring in social justice.  We need to solve the problems of the slums and the inner city, problems of child labor and all of these other things.  Not that these aren’t problems, but that’s not the thrust of Scripture.  That was the rise of political liberalism and how political liberalism is integrally related to religious liberalism.  Since the problem of man is not the Adamic fall and separation from God, the problem is now defined psychologically or socially so that what happens is that the solution is now defined psychologically or socially.  Being born again becomes a psychological shift not a spiritual rebirth.  So psychology takes over in how it is interpreting things in Scripture.  This is why you have the rise of the Joel Gregory’s and the Robert Schuller’s and this phenomenon where they never talk about sin and they never talk about atonement.  They just talk about how wonderful everybody is and how good they are because at their very core they have rejected biblical epistemology.  That isn’t saying that they might be saved.  God is gracious.  He saves all kinds of people.  All kinds of people hear the gospel at some point or another.   But that doesn’t mean that they are functioning on biblical truth. So psychological or social solutions become the framework, the terminology used to define these things

   6. Another consequence.  Since man is no different from any other animal (Remember learning that when you were in elementary school?), you are an animal.  You aren’t any different from any other animal.  The Bible says that you were created distinctly in the image and likeness of God for a purpose to represent God and to rule over the universe.   That means that there is no relationship between us and any other creature.  We are unique.  We didn’t evolve from monkeys.  Monkeys didn’t evolve from horses.  Horses didn’t evolve from crocodiles and amphibians.  Amphibians didn’t evolve from fish.  None of that happened.  That’s contrary to the Bible.  According to rationalism, since man is no different from any other animal; man learns to solve his problems not by looking to revelation from a creator.  In other words don’t look at the owner’s manual written by the creator of the product - look at the other products.  Have you ever had that experience you go to the store?  You buy something that is difficult to put together and it’s difficult to learn how to use it.  Do you read the owner’s manual or do you look at other things in your house and figure out how they work and come back and see if you can figure out how this thing works?  That’s basically what we are doing now in sociology.  We don’t look to revelation from a creator to inform us. We study nature and look at human societies to try to find out how man should solve his problems.  The affect of all this that God and the Bible are no longer relevant to modern man.  Tommy Ice my good friend who we all know used to drive us nuts when we would sit in some Christian Ed. class or some homiletics class in seminary.  They would say, “We need to make the Bible relevant.”  I just wanted to scream, “No!  Man needs to become relevant to God.  God doesn’t need to become relevant to man.”  What happened at the fall is that man became irrelevant.  It’s not that God became irrelevant.  In a very simplistic sense, who moved?  God or man?  Man did and man has got to move back.  That is what the call of Scripture is.  The Scripture is relevant.  Man because of his desire for independence and autonomy is not relevant to God.  He says, “Well, that doesn’t speak to me.”  It doesn’t speak because in unbelief he doesn’t buy into what the Bible is saying.  He says, “That isn’t relevant to me.”  He doesn’t want it to be relevant to him. 

   7. This led to the movement in the late 19th century to modernize Christianity which meant to divest Christianity for supernatural beliefs.  That became known as the modernist movement.  You have to understand modernism if you are going to understand post modernism.  Where we are today is post modernism.  That is beyond anything I am going to talk about in this little sub-series.

   8. During the early 20th century a battle erupted between fundamentalists on the one hand and the modernists on the other.  That became known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.  In the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy conservatives, Bible believing Christians got involved trying to say, “Okay.  What is the core?  What is the uncompromising core of what the Bible teaches that we all have to agree on that if we don’t agree on these things…”  And different people came up with different suggestions. What is the core?  Curtis Lee Laws in a well-known editorial written in the Baptist Watchmen Examiner in 1920 coined the terms fundamentalist and fundamentalism.  That is where the terms came from.  Nobody used the term before Curtis Lee Laws used those terms in 1920.  He used that terms fundamentalist and fundamentalism to define conservative Christians who held to five things.

The five essential doctrines were:

Inerrancy of the Bible

Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ

Substitutionary Atonement

His bodily resurrection and miracles

The future literal return of Jesus Christ to the earth.

Marginalized Christianity

“How did we get where we are today where Christianity seems to be the enemy?”    RD/Heb. 049b

It has been marginalized and pushed out even further than the margins.  We live in a society today, a culture today that is 180 degrees opposite of where it was 150 years ago.  What happened?  I am planning to have a much lengthier series on this some time in the fall or next winter. 

   1. What we call 19th century religious liberalism or 19th century protestant liberalism had its roots in the Enlightenment of the 18th century.  In the Enlightenment autonomous human reason is elevated above any kind of religion.  It is a reaction to the mystical superstition that dominated in the Middle Ages.  Even the terminology that we use here reflects this pagan opposition to Christianity.  How did most people refer to the Middle Ages?  Those were the Dark Ages.  They were dark.  But then what happened?  We had a shift to the emphasis on human reason and experience and it became the Enlightenment.  So you see there is a hidden agenda there that when Christianity dominated things was dark.  But they weren’t dark.  But you were taught that in school.  That is what most people are taught.  But there was a tremendous amount of learning going on.  It was the Christians that kept learning alive.   It was the monasteries that copied the Scriptures and copies the ancient documents.  There was a tremendous amount of scholarship and thought that went on.  You had brilliant minds.  I am not saying that they were right theologically.  You had brilliant minds, people like Thomas Aquinas who if you have ever read his writings, they are very difficult for the average product of an American secular education to follow.  He would dictate 4 or 5 of these books at the same time to four or five different scribes.    He would dictate a paragraph here and then a paragraph in the next book to the next scribe and then another paragraph to the next guy and then another one to a fourth scribe and then he would go back to the first one.  He never lost track.  I mean these people were brilliant.   And they were incredibly educated.  One of the problems theologically was that they were operating on Aristotelian or platonic presuppositions that created problems.  Just as a side note that is what the problem was. You typically hear a misconstruction of the whole Galileo episode.  That it is science versus religion.   No!  It was new science verses old science.  The Roman Catholic Church at that time wasn’t operating on a biblical viewpoint.  They were operating on an Aristotelian viewpoint of science and the universe.  The Aristotelian view was geocentric.  The earth was the center of the solar system and the center of the universe as opposed to what was coming up from new science which was saying that the solar system is heliocentric and the solar system isn’t the center of the universe.   It had nothing to do with the Bible.  It had to do with the fact that the Roman Catholic Church had compromised with Aristotelian empiricism.  Now a new form of empiricism was coming up in the Enlightenment.  That is what the conflict was.  The Bible doesn’t make a statement regarding geocentrism.  It doesn’t.  They got that out of Aristotelianism.  Anyhow you have the Enlightenment that develops in the 17th and 18th century so that human reason and empiricism become the final authority or the determiner of truth.  There is an implicit rejection that God speaks to man. 

   2. This reaches its culmination in the philosophical shift that took place in the writings of a German philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant.   What Immanuel Kant said was that man can’t know things as they are objectively.  He can only know his impressions of things.  Therefore knowledge is no longer objectively outside of man.  Up until this point everyone believed that there was truth – that it existed objectively and externally.  They didn’t agree on how you knew it or how you got there.  Everybody believed that there is external, objective, verifiable knowable truth.  But Kant said, “No.  We don’t know truth.  It’s not out there.  All we know is what we see of truth.   All we know is our impression.”  So you have your impression and someone else has their impression.  It is the old analogy of the six blind men, each one feeling a different part of the elephant.  That was really a Hindu illustration.  One guy feels a tail and says that it feels like a snake.  One guy feels a leg and says it feels like a tree.  Another one feels a side and it feels like a wall.  They don’t know what it is.  All they know is their impression of truth.  This destroys any basis for objective knowledge.   It just ripples through the intellectual community from Germany all through Europe and across the pond to the US.  Man can’t know objective knowledge anymore.  That affects everything.  They are in awe of this. This is so intellectual.  This is so wonderful.  Of course it destroys any absolute truth from Scripture because you can’t know anything but your impressions.  So you can’t know God.  You can’t know anything that exists in what he called the realm of the numinal(?).  You can only know the realm of phenomenal which is what you experience. 

   3. Knowledge was no longer objective; it was now subjective.  So ultimately where this goes is that truth becomes relative.  You have your truth and somebody else has their truth.  How do you know if there is any absolute overriding universal truth?   Well, you don’t. You just have your impressions.  It leads to the complete breakdown of having any kind of absolute meaning or unifying truth or any unifying knowledge where people can know and make absolute decisions.  Once you destroy the basis for absolutes, then all culture starts to break down which is where we end up with today in post modernism.  We are getting ahead of ourselves. 

        4. So truth in the Kantian understanding of knowledge comes from within the human mind.  That is rationalism.   But when rationalism goes to seed it also becomes mysticism.  You get into the later development of the 19th century.  You start getting the intrusion of mystical ideas from people like Hegel and Kierkegaard and other philosophers at that time.   

   5. In this whole maelstrom of intellectual ferment that is going on in Europe in the 19th century you have the rise of four great intellectual novelties that takes place.  It is interesting that they all pop up on the landscape within about 20 years of each other.  Do you think that is coincidence?  No, that isn’t coincidence.  It happens because the center of truth has shifted from outside man to inside man.  That is why they called Kant’s thinking the Copernican revolution in philosophy.  The center of reality centered from external objectivity to internal subjectivity.  Within 20 years you have the rise of Darwinism and evolution; Herbert Spencer and modern sociology; Sigmund Freud and modern psychology and Karl Marx and economics and Marxism.  These guys all knew each other and read each other and cross pollinated ideas.  It all comes from a foundation that rejects God and rejects the idea that the universe, the world, the systems of the universe and the institutions of society are determined by a Creator God.  Once autonomous reason takes over in academia.  Then it starts to impact every discipline of thought from the obvious ones here.  It affects economics.  It affects law. It affects politics.  It affects your social sciences.  Everything shifts radically in the late 19th century. This of course affects their view of Christianity.  The affect of this on Christianity is to cause a rejection of revelation as objective and infallible.  You can’t know anything objectively anymore according to this Kantian shift.  Therefore Christianity is just another religious system.  It is just like Buddhism or Hinduism or any other religious system.  It may be a little more civilized, but it is just another option.  Darwinism comes along and Herbert Spencer and sociology and these religions evolved.  So none is more important than others.  Then you have a rejection of miracles, the virgin birth and resurrection.  These are all superstitious myths.  They are too unbelievable for modern minds.    Now that modern man understands knowledge as developed by Kant, we know that you can’t know truth.  There aren’t any absolutes so we can’t live in that superstitious dark mentality that God has spoken to man any more. We can’t live like that.  We have become too sophisticated.  We have become too modern.  So this became known as the modernist movement. One affect of this was to remove God and the Bible from having anything to say about man’s intellectual life and thus how he thinks about his environment – social, political, economic, legal, aesthetic, music, theatre, drama, literature, science.  God no longer speaks to this.  Up to this point Christians might have differed in their conclusions or how they got there, but they all believed that the Bible spoke to every area of life.  Now all of a sudden the Bible doesn’t speak to these areas of life.  We need reason and empiricism to do that, not the Bible.  If you go back to the Bible to define law, freedom, and authority then you belong in the Dark Ages.  You are some sort of ante-deluvian dinosaur.  You are not in the modern world anymore.  All of a sudden what the Bible addressed shrunk.  It talks about you and your relationship to God.   That’s all it talks about.  It talks about your spiritual life and that’s it.  So this becomes very subjective.  It impacts everything.  By the end of the 20th century it impacts all kinds of concepts about worship and teaching.   You couldn’t go to a church today on a Sunday morning and hear a sermon on a Biblical theology of economics.  You could 400 years ago, but you won’t today.  If you found any place like that there would be one person sitting out there in the pew.  You couldn’t go somewhere and find a pastor teaching Biblical theology of art and music.  It just isn’t done.  People won’t stand for it.  They aren’t trained intellectually to handle this any more.  We are all the products of a wonderful public education state funded system.  Another consequence of all of this is that man’s problems are no longer viewed as ultimately spiritual.  The problems we have with society, with prejudice, with poverty, with war that we no longer view these as having an ultimate source in a spiritual problem of man’s separation from God.  Rather than making the primary solution the cross, the primary solution becomes “lets get involved socially”.  This is what happened in the 19th century with the social gospel that we need to bring in social justice.  We need to solve the problems of the slums and the inner city, problems of child labor and all of these other things.  Not that these aren’t problems, but that’s not the thrust of Scripture.  That was the rise of political liberalism and how political liberalism is integrally related to religious liberalism.  Since the problem of man is not the Adamic fall and separation from God, the problem is now defined psychologically or socially so that what happens is that the solution is now defined psychologically or socially.  Being born again becomes a psychological shift not a spiritual rebirth.  So psychology takes over in how it is interpreting things in Scripture.  This is why you have the rise of the Joel Gregory’s and the Robert Schuller’s and this phenomenon where they never talk about sin and they never talk about atonement.  They just talk about how wonderful everybody is and how good they are because at their very core they have rejected biblical epistemology.  That isn’t saying that they might be saved.  God is gracious.  He saves all kinds of people.  All kinds of people hear the gospel at some point or another.   But that doesn’t mean that they are functioning on biblical truth. So psychological or social solutions become the framework, the terminology used to define these things

   6. Another consequence.  Since man is no different from any other animal (Remember learning that when you were in elementary school?), you are an animal.  You aren’t any different from any other animal.  The Bible says that you were created distinctly in the image and likeness of God for a purpose to represent God and to rule over the universe.   That means that there is no relationship between us and any other creature.  We are unique.  We didn’t evolve from monkeys.  Monkeys didn’t evolve from horses.  Horses didn’t evolve from crocodiles and amphibians.  Amphibians didn’t evolve from fish.  None of that happened.  That’s contrary to the Bible.  According to rationalism, since man is no different from any other animal; man learns to solve his problems not by looking to revelation from a creator.  In other words don’t look at the owner’s manual written by the creator of the product - look at the other products.  Have you ever had that experience you go to the store?  You buy something that is difficult to put together and it’s difficult to learn how to use it.  Do you read the owner’s manual or do you look at other things in your house and figure out how they work and come back and see if you can figure out how this thing works?  That’s basically what we are doing now in sociology.  We don’t look to revelation from a creator to inform us. We study nature and look at human societies to try to find out how man should solve his problems.  The affect of all this that God and the Bible are no longer relevant to modern man.  Tommy Ice my good friend who we all know used to drive us nuts when we would sit in some Christian Ed. class or some homiletics class in seminary.  They would say, “We need to make the Bible relevant.”  I just wanted to scream, “No!  Man needs to become relevant to God.  God doesn’t need to become relevant to man.”  What happened at the fall is that man became irrelevant.  It’s not that God became irrelevant.  In a very simplistic sense, who moved?  God or man?  Man did and man has got to move back.  That is what the call of Scripture is.  The Scripture is relevant.  Man because of his desire for independence and autonomy is not relevant to God.  He says, “Well, that doesn’t speak to me.”  It doesn’t speak because in unbelief he doesn’t buy into what the Bible is saying.  He says, “That isn’t relevant to me.”  He doesn’t want it to be relevant to him. 

   7. This led to the movement in the late 19th century to modernize Christianity which meant to divest Christianity for supernatural beliefs.  That became known as the modernist movement.  You have to understand modernism if you are going to understand post modernism.  Where we are today is post modernism.  That is beyond anything I am going to talk about in this little sub-series.

   8. During the early 20th century a battle erupted between fundamentalists on the one hand and the modernists on the other.  That became known as the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy.  In the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy conservatives, Bible believing Christians got involved trying to say, “Okay.  What is the core?  What is the uncompromising core of what the Bible teaches that we all have to agree on that if we don’t agree on these things…”  And different people came up with different suggestions. What is the core?  Curtis Lee Laws in a well-known editorial written in the Baptist Watchmen Examiner in 1920 coined the terms fundamentalist and fundamentalism.  That is where the terms came from.  Nobody used the term before Curtis Lee Laws used those terms in 1920.  He used that terms fundamentalist and fundamentalism to define conservative Christians who held to five things.

The five essential doctrines were:

Inerrancy of the Bible

Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ

Substitutionary Atonement

His bodily resurrection and miracles

The future literal return of Jesus Christ to the earth.

Marriage, The Divine Ideal for

The divine ideal for marriage is one partner for life.

RD/1 Cor. 037

Four principles

1)      God does not regulate sin. God prohibits, forbids sin but God doesn’t regulate sin. One of the problems that we have when we talk about marriage is that some people get the idea that in marriage when a man and a woman marry this creates some sort of indissoluble, unbreakable, ontological, almost a metaphysical union that no matter what happens can never be broken. That presents a number of problems because Scripture clearly recognizes, as in Deuteronomy 4, that if a man divorces his wife and she marries another one that she is now the wife of that second husband. If there is this sort of unbreakable, indissoluble union that occurs then she can never legitimately be called the wife of somebody else. It is the same in John chapter four where Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman and recognizes that she has had five husbands. It doesn’t state that they all died but the chances are that those five men did not die and that they were divorced. Jesus clearly recognizes in His discussion with her that she is not now the husband of anyone, so He recognizes the legitimacy of those divorces and that they ended the marriage. That is important because there are many people who believe that there is no provision in the Scriptures for divorce at all or remarriage, and yet there is at least those two examples that the Lord Himself recognizes the reality of the ending of a marriage. But God doesn’t regulate sin, therefore that means that there is validity to divorce and remarriage under some conditions. Those modifications have been made because of the reality of sinfulness. God is a realist and He understands the problems that have entered into human history because of the sin nature. So God deals with man in grace and grace is an overriding principle that must be understood when talking about this subject.

2)      Because of the present reality of sin the exceptions must not be taken as creating a permissive situation where marriage is viewed as somehow disposable. Because of the present reality of sin and because of the fact that Scripture clearly recognizes that people are going to have problems in marriages and marriages are going to break up, that this must never be taken as creating any kind of permissive situation where marriage is viewed as somehow disposable. The standard in Scripture is even though there may be exceptions those exceptions don’t mandate divorce, they simply allow for it in certain circumstances. But for the believer the standard is always to do as much as possible to work out the problems in the marriage, applying the principle of reconciliation. And the sub-text throughout all these passages is, if the believer can’t apply the principle of reconciliation in his own personal life how can he be an effective witness or testimony to the doctrine of reconciliation in witnessing. So we have to recognize that just because there are problems and just because there are exceptions it doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to follow those exceptions.

3)      The tone of all the divorce passages in Scripture is not to focus on the exception idea but on the importance of the believer applying doctrine to the situation and seeking reconciliation and peace in the marriage, even though this may take years or decades. What we tend to do it ask: How can I get out of it? Marriage testing is one area of people testing that is extremely difficult, and when people are going through that it is very typical, as with all categories of testing, is to have uppermost in the mind how to get out of the situation.

4)      The two extremes must be avoided. The first extreme is one that every one of us has probably felt at one time or another is to rationalize a justification. One often hears the rationalisation in one form or another: God would not want me to be this miserable. What that person has done is to buy into a completely false premise. How many times do we get involved in some form of testing, some form of adversity, that is going to go on and on and on for years, if not decades. The real test is to trust God in the midst of those horrible circumstances, not to figure out some way to get rid of them. What we are really saying by this rationalisation is that God wouldn’t want me to go through that adversity. That just runs contrary to Scripture. God often allows or specifically puts us in miserable circumstances, and miserable circumstances that may last a lifetime, in order for us to learn that real happiness and stability in life is not dependent on those circumstances. Real happiness and real stability in life is not dependent on a spouse, children, a job, finances or any detail of life. So we have to avoid that pressure to make it too easy to come up with reasons or justifications to allow for divorce. On the other hand we have to allow for yielding to the pressure of legalism and idealism without accepting the present reality of sin: that there are situations where one partner yields to carnality to such a degree that it is no longer feasible for one partner to stay in that marriage. A lot of different conditions that are not addressed in Scripture are present today such as physical abuse, sexual abuse, financial abuse, etc. Many of these situations do not necessitate a divorce (in fact, none of them make a divorce necessary) but there is Scriptural allowance for the fact that divorce can take place under some of these circumstances. While it may not be sin to divorce it may not allow for remarriage.

Matthew Discourses

Matthew 5:1–7:28 NKJV

And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, For they shall be filled. Blessed are the merciful, For they shall obtain mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, For they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, For they shall be called sons of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. “Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder, and whoever murders will be in danger of the judgment.’ But I say to you that whoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment. And whoever says to his brother, ‘Raca!’ shall be in danger of the council. But whoever says, ‘You fool!’ shall be in danger of hell fire. Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Agree with your adversary quickly, while you are on the way with him, lest your adversary deliver you to the judge, the judge hand you over to the officer, and you be thrown into prison. Assuredly, I say to you, you will by no means get out of there till you have paid the last penny. “You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell. “Furthermore it has been said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that whoever divorces his wife for any reason except sexual immorality causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a woman who is divorced commits adultery. “Again you have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform your oaths to the Lord.’ But I say to you, do not swear at all: neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; nor by the earth, for it is His footstool; nor by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. Nor shall you swear by your head, because you cannot make one hair white or black. But let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No.’ For whatever is more than these is from the evil one. “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I tell you not to resist an evil person. But whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take away your tunic, let him have your cloak also. And whoever compels you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. “Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory from men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly. “And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites. For they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words. “Therefore do not be like them. For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him. In this manner, therefore, pray: Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. “Moreover, when you fast, do not be like the hypocrites, with a sad countenance. For they disfigure their faces that they may appear to men to be fasting. Assuredly, I say to you, they have their reward. But you, when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, so that you do not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness! “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? “So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble. “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove the speck from your eye’; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’ “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching,

Matthew 10:1–11:1 NKJV

And when He had called His twelve disciples to Him, He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease. Now the names of the twelve apostles are these: first, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother; James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James the son of Alphaeus, and Lebbaeus, whose surname was Thaddaeus; Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. These twelve Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying: “Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter a city of the Samaritans. But go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel. And as you go, preach, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give. Provide neither gold nor silver nor copper in your money belts, nor bag for your journey, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. “Now whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there till you go out. And when you go into a household, greet it. If the household is worthy, let your peace come upon it. But if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you. And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet. Assuredly, I say to you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city! “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. But beware of men, for they will deliver you up to councils and scourge you in their synagogues. You will be brought before governors and kings for My sake, as a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, do not worry about how or what you should speak. For it will be given to you in that hour what you should speak; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father who speaks in you. “Now brother will deliver up brother to death, and a father his child; and children will rise up against parents and cause them to be put to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another. For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes. “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known. “Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. “He who receives you receives Me, and he who receives Me receives Him who sent Me. He who receives a prophet in the name of a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward. And he who receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.” Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities.

Matthew 13:1–53 NKJV

On the same day Jesus went out of the house and sat by the sea. And great multitudes were gathered together to Him, so that He got into a boat and sat; and the whole multitude stood on the shore. Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!” And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?” He answered and said to them, “Because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. For whoever has, to him more will be given, and he will have abundance; but whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him. Therefore I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. And in them the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled, which says: ‘Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, And seeing you will see and not perceive; For the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, And their eyes they have closed, Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, So that I should heal them.’ But blessed are your eyes for they see, and your ears for they hear; for assuredly, I say to you that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field; but while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?’ He said to them, ‘An enemy has done this.’ The servants said to him, ‘Do you want us then to go and gather them up?’ But he said, ‘No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at the time of harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn.” ’ ” Another parable He put forth to them, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.” Another parable He spoke to them: “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened.” All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world.” Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him, saying, “Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.” He answered and said to them: “He who sows the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, the good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil, the harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear! “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid; and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to shore; and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from among the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.” Jesus said to them, “Have you understood all these things?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” Then He said to them, “Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.” Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there.

Matthew 18:1–19:1 NKJV

At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” Then Jesus called a little child to Him, set him in the midst of them, and said, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one little child like this in My name receives Me. “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to sin, it would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes! “If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life lame or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet, to be cast into the everlasting fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. “Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven. For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector. “Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. “Again I say to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there in the midst of them.” Then Peter came to Him and said, “Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Up to seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you, up to seven times, but up to seventy times seven. Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, ‘Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. “But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, ‘Pay me what you owe!’ So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.’ And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?’ And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. “So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.

Matthew 24:4–26:1 NKJV

And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake. And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another. Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many. And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold. But he who endures to the end shall be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come. “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let him who is on the housetop not go down to take anything out of his house. And let him who is in the field not go back to get his clothes. But woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days! And pray that your flight may not be in winter or on the Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened. “Then if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or ‘There!’ do not believe it. For false christs and false prophets will rise and show great signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. See, I have told you beforehand. “Therefore if they say to you, ‘Look, He is in the desert!’ do not go out; or ‘Look, He is in the inner rooms!’ do not believe it. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For wherever the carcass is, there the eagles will be gathered together. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. “Now learn this parable from the fig tree: When its branch has already become tender and puts forth leaves, you know that summer is near. So you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near—at the doors! Assuredly, I say to you, this generation will by no means pass away till all these things take place. Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away. “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left. Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect. “Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his master made ruler over his household, to give them food in due season? Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing. Assuredly, I say to you that he will make him ruler over all his goods. But if that evil servant says in his heart, ‘My master is delaying his coming,’ and begins to beat his fellow servants, and to eat and drink with the drunkards, the master of that servant will come on a day when he is not looking for him and at an hour that he is not aware of, and will cut him in two and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. “Then the kingdom of heaven shall be likened to ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Now five of them were wise, and five were foolish. Those who were foolish took their lamps and took no oil with them, but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. But while the bridegroom was delayed, they all slumbered and slept. “And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’ Then all those virgins arose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil, for our lamps are going out.’ But the wise answered, saying, ‘No, lest there should not be enough for us and you; but go rather to those who sell, and buy for yourselves.’ And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the wedding; and the door was shut. “Afterward the other virgins came also, saying, ‘Lord, Lord, open to us!’ But he answered and said, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, I do not know you.’ “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming. “For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money. After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ “Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ “When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’ “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.’ “Then He will also say to those on the left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.’ “Then they also will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?’ Then He will answer them, saying, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.’ And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples,

The Five Major “Discourses” or Teachings/ Instructions of Jesus in Matthew

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Why are these important?

, “ ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,

, “ ‘teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.’ Amen.”

1. Jesus instructs His disciples on the mountain (“Sermon on the Mount”),

Jesus instructs His disciples about the kind of righteousness which should characterize those who are prepared for the kingdom.

, “And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching,”

2. Instructions to His disciples to go out,

.

Jesus instructs His disciples to take the gospel of the Kingdom only to the house of Israel, not the Gentiles.

, “Now it came to pass, when Jesus finished commanding His twelve disciples, that He departed from there to teach and to preach in their cities.”

3. Jesus instructs His disciples on previously unrevealed information about the Kingdom in parables,

Describes trends in the interim period before the arrival of the now postponed Kingdom.

, “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these parables, that He departed from there.”

4. Jesus instructs His disciples on humility and leadership with reference to the future Kingdom,

This is not addressed to the Church. No information is given about the Church Age, but the principles apply to any believer in preparation for the Kingdom.

, “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan.”

5. Jesus instructs His disciples about His coming to establish His Kingdom, the events that immediately precede it, and the judgments that will follow it,

.

, “Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished all these sayings, that He said to His disciples,”

Mediator

What is a mediator?   RD/Gal/030

1.      A mediator is a go-between, someone who intervenes between two or more disputants in order to settle or reconcile differences. Who are the disputants? On the one hand there is God and on the other hand there is man. God is perfect righteousness; man lacks righteousness. How can there be a solution to the problem because there is a sin barrier erected between God and man, and that must be resolved? 1 Timothy 2:5 NASB “For there is one God, {and} one mediator also between God and men, {the} man Christ Jesus.”

2.      A mediator is not for one party only. When God ratified the covenant with Abraham in Genesis 15 they took the sacrifices related to the covenant and laid them out on the altar. Normally the two parties in the covenant would walk together between the sacrifice to signify both were involved. God caused a sleep to fall on Abraham; God walks through—one walks through. A mediator is not for one. God alone made these unconditional promises in the Abrahamic covenant. In contrast, because the Mosaic covenant is a temporary and conditional covenant it demanded temporary mediators—the angels and Moses. This means that the Abrahamic covenant is superior to the Mosaic covenant. The Abrahamic covenant includes the promise of blessing based on faith. The Mosaic covenant which was to Israel, when it promised blessing, it was based on obedience to the Mosaic Law because it had to do with national blessing. It did not have to do with salvation or the spiritual life.   

Men and Women, Similarities and Differences in

Similarities and Differences in Men and Women

RD/1 Cor.060

Similarities in men and women

1)      The are both create din the image and likeness of God. Genesis 1:26, 28.

2)      Men and women have the same capacity to reason, to think, to understand, and to communicate.

3)      Physically there are many similarities.

4)      They are both equally marred and defaced by sin, and thus equal in their capacity for sin in their sin nature. Romans 3:23.

5)      Men and women stand in equal need of salvation, and both men and women had their sins paid for by the substitutionary spiritual death of the one Man, Christ Jesus. 1 Timothy 2:5.

Differences in men and women that are documented in medical literature

1)      Men and women differ in every cell of their bodies. This difference is in the chromosome combination and is the basic cause of development into maleness or femaleness as the case may be.

2)      The female has greater constitutional vitality, perhaps because of this chromosome difference. Normally she outlives the male by three or four years in the US.

3)      The sexes differ in the basic metabolism, that of a woman being normally lower than that of a man.

4)      They differ in skeletal structure. The woman has a shorter head, broader face, her chin generally less protruding, shorter legs and a longer trunk. (This is general)

5)      There are differences in the sizes of the internal organs. A woman has a larger stomach, kidneys, liver and appendix, but a woman has smaller lungs and therefore smaller lung capacity.

6)      Women have several important functions totally lacking in the male. Women have menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation. This all relates to the unique role that women have in terms of producing life.

7)      The woman’s blood contains more water, she has 20 per cent fewer red cells, and since the red cells supply oxygen to the body cells she tires more easily, she is more prone to faint, and her constitutional viability is therefore strictly a long-range matter.

8)      In brute strength men are fifty per cent above women. In fact, if you take an out-of-shape middle-aged male he can usually bench-press a greater percentage of his body weight than an in-shape younger female.

9)      A woman’s heart beats more rapidly: 80 beats per minute versus 72 for the male. A woman’s blood pressure averages 10 points lower than a male but it varies from minute to minute. Women have a much lower tendency to high blood pressure until after menopause.

10)   The woman’s vital capacity or breathing power is lower than the male by a ratio of seven to ten.

11)   The woman stands a high temperature better than a man does.

There are also some other differences

1)      The male is clearly designed to be an aggressor, to initiate and to penetrate. The female is designed to receive and respond. There are also various differences in brain functioning that are biologically inherent and not determined by cultural factors alone. For example, verbal and spatial abilities in boys operate out of different areas of the brain than in girls.

2)      From shortly after birth females are more sensitive to certain types of sound, particularly to a mother’s voice but also to loud noises.

3)      Girls have more skin sensitivity, particularly in the fingertips, and are more proficient at fine motor performance.

4)      Girls speak sooner, have larger vocabularies, rarely demonstrate speech defects, exceed boys in language abilities and learn foreign languages more easily. 

5)      Boys show early visual superiority.

6)      Girls are more attentive to social contexts, faces, speech patterns and subtle vocal clues.

7)      Boys have better total body coordination but are poorer at detailed hand activities, e.g. stringing beads.

8)      Boys have different attentional mechanisms and will react as quickly to an inanimate objects as to a person.

9)      Boys are more curious about exploring their environment.

10)   Boys are better at manipulating three-dimensional space.

11)   Of eleven sub-tests given for psychological measurement in “the most widely used general intelligence test” only two, i.e. digit span and picture arrangement, revealed similar means scans for male and females. These sex differences are so consistent that since the 1970s the standard battery for this intelligence test now contains a masculine and feminine index to offset sex related efficiencies and deficiencies.

12)   Girls who are assertive and active and can control events have greater intellectual development. While these factors are not as significant in male intellectual development.

13)   More boys are hyperactive—more than 90% are males.

14)   Because the male brain is primarily visual and learns by manipulating his environment listening instruction for boys in early elementary grades is more stressful for them. Girls, therefore, tend to exceed them at that age.

15)   Girls do less well on scholarship tests that are more geared for male performance at higher grades.

16)   Men are generally more aggressive, more inclined toward planned organization, and more likely to be interested in external environment, while women are more people-related and better at details and communication and hand dexterity.

These are general trends noted in a variety of different studies. All of this supports the biblical teaching that there is a difference between men and women. God designed them not only different physically but different in terms of their soul talents and makeup. The man is designed as a leader; he has leadership traits, whereas the woman is designed to be a responder and a receiver. 

Metalepsis

Metalepsis   RD/Heb/144b

In the New Testament, the expression “the blood of Christ” is the figure Metalepsis; because first the “blood” is put (by Synecdoché [related ideas]) for bloodshedding: i.e., the death of Christ, as distinct from His life; and then His death is put for the perfect satisfaction made by it [phys death for spiritual death—noun for related noun-Metonymy], for all the merits of the atonement effected by it: i.e., it means not merely the actual blood corpuscles, neither does it mean His death as an act, but the merits of the atonement effected by it and associated with it.                                          

                                                     (EB, Figures)

All such expressions are contrary to physiology and common sense. We lose nothing of the facts, but gain immensely as to their meaning, when we understand that, by Metalepsis, “blood” is put for death, and “death” for the atonement made by it and all its infinite merits. In like manner “the Cross” is put first for the crucifixion as an act, or for Him who was crucified thereon: and then this is put for the resulting merits of His atonements procured thereby.

A synecdoché is the exchange of one idea for another associated idea.

The difference between Metonymy and Synecdoché lies in this; that in Metonymy, the exchange is made between two related nouns; while in Synecdoché, the exchange is made between two associated ideas.

Metonymy Is a figure by which one name or noun is used instead of another, to which it stands in a certain relation.

The change is in the noun, and only in a verb as connected with the action proceeding from it.

Metonymy

Metonymy     RD/Heb/144b

Is a figure by which one name or noun is used instead of another, to which it stands in a certain relation.

The change is in the noun, and only in a verb as connected with the action proceeding from it.

(Ethelbert William Bullinger, Figures of Speech)

Ministries of God the Holy Spirit

Ministries of God the Holy Spirit

1) Indwelling-

1 Corinthians 3:16 Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?

Ephesians 4:30And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.

1 Thessalonians 5:19 Do not extinguish the Spirit.

2) Filling-

Ephesians 5:18And do not get drunk with wine, which is debauchery, but be filled by the Spirit,

3) Guiding-

John 16:13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but will speak whatever he hears, and will tell you what is to come.

4) Illuminating-

1 Corinthians 2:10 God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.

5) Teaching-

John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.

1 Corinthians 2:12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God.

6) Implicational recall

John 14:26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.

7) Bearing witness

Romans 8:16 The Spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we are God’s children.

8) Leading

Galatians 5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

9) Intercession

Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know how we should pray, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

Romans 8:27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes on behalf of the saints according to God’s will.

In the same way the Spirit (God the Holy Spirit) takes up the slack on behalf for our weakness, for we do not know how to pray in the manner that we should (what God's will is), but the Spirit himself intercedes on our behalf with inexpressible (inaudible) words (groanings too deep for words);

Romans 8:27 and the one who is searching (God the Holy Spirit) the souls (heart) know what the mind of the spirit (intermost thoughts-thinking) is, for he (God the Holy Spirit) consistently intercedes on behalf of the saints according to the will of God.

How

Ephesians 6:18 With every prayer and petition, pray at all times in the Spirit, and to this end be alert, with all perseverance and requests for all the saints.

Ministry of Holy Spirit in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ

We have several points to cover in the relationship to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.   RD/Heb/128c

   1. The ministry of the Holy Spirit in sustaining Jesus Christ is prophesized in the Old Testament. The key passage is Isaiah 11:2, 3 talking about the 6-fold Spirit being poured out upon the Lord Jesus Christ - also mentioned in Isaiah 42:1, 61:1-3.  In His humanity Jesus Christ had to face all kinds of testing.  He had to face all the normal vagaries of life that we face because He would become thirsty.  He would become hungry.  Physically He would become tired.  All of these things would enter into His day-to-day experience.  He had to make choices as to how He handled these things.  You know when you get tired (I know this probably doesn’t apply to anybody here.  I am just talking theoretically.) …when people get tired sometimes they get grumpy.  Well, the Lord Jesus Christ had to deal with the fact whether or not He would get grumpy when He was tired.  Unlike most of us He didn’t.  He didn’t make that choice so He had to rely on the Holy Spirit.  He used the same basic skills that we use to solve these problems and tests.  He had to rely on the promise of God.  He had to rely on the doctrine that He knew in His soul - understanding the plan of God, the grace of God, the provision of God, His love for God.  He’s focused on His mission.  All of these things gave Him a focus on solving the problems through the sustaining ministry of God the Holy Spirit.  We have that same ministry.  That’s part of the thrust of what we see in Hebrews. Because we have this same ministry of the Holy Spirit that the Lord had, we too can make those decisions to not sin.  The problem is that we don’t and we need to be constantly reminded.  It is easy for us to relax and then the spiritual gearshift slips out of forward momentum and into neutral.  The next thing you know we’re crashing into the ditch of carnality.    2. The second thing we noted was that the Holy Spirit was related to the baptism of Jesus.  This is His inauguration into His ministry.  The same thing happens to us when we trust in Christ as our Savior.  We are baptized or identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection which set us apart positionally for service.    3. We’ve seen under point 3 that the Holy Spirit sustained Jesus Christ during His earthly ministry.  Matthew 12:18, 28, Luke 4:14, 15, and 18.  When the Holy Spirit led Him into the wilderness and He was without food (and water) and fasted for 40 days, 40 nights and then through the three tests of the devil; it’s the Holy Spirit who led Him into the testing.  Sometimes we think when we get into testing that “Oops! Wait a minute.  I must have made a wrong turn.  Last night when I was contemplating my naval in terms of what kind of liver quiver I would have to make this decision I must have misread those sensations and so I made a wrong turn.”  It’s funny how so many people evaluate the decision making in their lives even if they do it right.  You sit down.  I’ve seen this.  I have gone through this myself.  You make all the right decisions.  You weigh every piece of evidence you can come up with.  You talk to wise people who’ve gone through similar things.  You get their input.  You look at all the circumstances.  You weigh all the factors.  You pray about it.  You trust God and you make the decision.  Six months later after you’ve moved across the country, you have taken a new job.  You bought a new house.  You have gotten a new car.  The company decides that they are going bankrupt.  They close their doors. You’re out of a job.  Now you live 3,000 miles away from family, friends, church, and everything else.  You say, “Why did God let me do this?”  Now we start blaming God.  The reality is that through the decision making process and the application of doctrine; we were covertly led by the Holy Spirit to a wilderness situation to be tested to see if the doctrine in our souls would keep us from blaming God.  “Oops!  Failed that one.”  So that’s the point.  We have the same Holy Spirit. He will take us covertly into places where there is testing so that we can grow by the doctrine that we have and see how God works in our lives.      4. The sustaining ministry of the Holy Spirit continued when Christ was bearing our sins on the cross when He cried out ,

NKJ Matthew 27:46 …"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"

When you look at the Hebrew from which that is quoted in Psalm 22 the “why have you forsaken Me” is a singular pronoun.  It is not “My God” (that is the Father) and My God (that is the Holy Spirit) why have you both forsaken Me?  It is My God, My God, (both in reference to the Father) why have you (singular) abandoned Me?  Why have you forsaken Me?  Why have you allowed Me to go through this?  Jesus asked that question.  It is the Holy Spirit though that doesn’t forsake Him, doesn’t abandon Him.  It is the Holy Spirit who strengthens Him so that in those 3 hours on the cross when He goes through pain and suffering and misery that you and I cannot even imagine.  On our worst day, in our worst pain we are not going through 1/10th of 1% of what Jesus went through in the first 5 minutes of the cross.  We can’t even describe the intensity of it because it was so horrific.  The sinless impeccable Second Person of the Trinity bore in His body in hypostatic union (the deity didn’t leave) He bore in His body on the cross the full weight and penalty for our sin – every bit of it.  And He was separated from the Father judicially for those 3 hours.  What enabled Him to do that and to not sin, not come off the cross, to not walk away from it, was the ministry of God the Holy Spirit.  That’s the same ministry that each of us has to enable us to get through anything that happens.  The test and the misery – and some of the worst tests we have are from our own emotions.   We just think, “Well, this is never going to go away.”  The point is to relax.  Never is a long time and it won’t probably last until tomorrow.  But we’re so impatient that we have to try to solve it in our own strength immediately.

   5. The 5th thing that we see from the Holy Spirit’s role with our Lord is that He had a role in the resurrection of Jesus Christ - His physical resurrection according to Romans 8:11 and I Peter 3:18.    6. The present ministry of the Holy Spirit in relation to Jesus Christ is described in John 7:39 and John 16:40 in terms of its result which is the glorification of Jesus Christ.  So He comes to the church for the purpose of glorifying the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit’s ministry is not to glorify Himself.  He’s not the focal point of His ministry despite what the charismatics and the Pentecostals say where they put so much emphasis on the Holy Spirit and sing songs like “Come Holy Spirit Come”.  Of course He is already here raising His eyebrows saying, “Why are you saying that?

Modernism and Post-Modernism

Modernism and Post-Modernism; 1 John 2:15

RD/1 John/044

1 John 2:15-17 NASB “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and {also} its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

The cosmic system has to do with thinking, not action. Too often, especially in older and legalistic elements of Christianity, worldliness is expressed in terms of hair or cosmetics or dress or certain life-styles, and that may or may not have something to do with worldliness. Worldliness in Scripture has to do with thought forms and to thinking like Satan thinks. Cosmic thinking is antithetical to what the Bible teaches. Divine viewpoint is based on absolute truth revealed in Scripture.

Every generation, every era, every culture has different manifestations of the cosmic system. Life is looked at through a different set of glasses, a different lens, and everything is interpreted within that. But what characterises our age more than anything else is the concept of postmodernism. September 11 and the planes crashing into the World Trade Centre woke everybody up to the real presence of evil in the world. The one exception, one writer observed, is the universities, the realm of so-called scholarly intellectuals. He said “this is the one exception where prominent voices blame America first and demand sympathy for the other (whatever the “other” is), the supposed victim of rapacious rationalism and imperialism (notice how he links the philosophical way of thinking, rationalism, with action—imperialism).  The loathing of intellectuals for the West itself is one concept of our age.” The ideas of these people and the books that they write are influencing the intellectuals in a country and the students in a country. The universities and the colleges crank out these business people, the politicians, the lawyers, the educators, the historians of our era. They are trained by the intellectuals at these universities to think a certain way, and as it filters its way down from the intellectuals to their students to the people who go out into the real world, then these ideas begin to affect everybody around them. That is how it seeps out into society and before you know it we are all thinking this way. The average person in America is neither an existentialist nor a postmodernist, they have never heard of either one of them, but just because they don’t know the technical terminology doesn’t mean they aren’t influenced by this.    

Another example of postmodernism and what we think of as Christians from a German philosopher who lived at the early part of the 20th century. He was a defender of Nazi tyranny. He saw in National Socialism an inner truth and greatness that could free the western world from its enslavement to rationalism. It is an attack on reason, a reaction to the rationalism and empiricism of the Enlightenment.

Another leader in postmodern thought also had a problem with legitimate authority and tyrannical abuse of power. He looked at prisons, jails and asylums as symbols of the illegitimate use of power as a result of western rationalism. So anything western is considered evil. That really is a subtle attack on Christianity because what made western history western history and western civilisation western civilisation was not the barbarians of Germany, the Slavs and the Huns that came out of the steppes of Russia, the mystical Celts and their Druid worship; it was the Christians who came along and transformed European history. So all of this is simply an assault on absolute truth, on objective truth, and on the structures of authority that God has established. At the same time this man admires the regimes of Mao Zedong in China and the Ayatollah  Khomeini. Those are his heroes. So in this whole thing power becomes a major theme in understanding postmodernists, power for people who have been previously marginalised. There are two good watchwords that come out of postmodern thinking: empowerment and issue. The word “issue” is a morally neutral word; “problem” isn’t. Problem implies that there is an absolute, that there is a wrong, that there is right and there is wrong; but issue has the idea that you are just going to resolve something without having to deal with something right or wrong. These kinds of terminology reflect a shift in the way people think in our culture. They no longer think in terms of absolutes, they think completely in terms of relatives.

Postmodernism

1.       Sixty-six per cent of Americans believe that no such thing as absolute truth exists. (That is an internally illogical statement: if no absolute exists, is that an absolute? Postmodernism hoists on its own petard). Seventy-two per cent of those between the ages of 18 and 25 do not believe there is any such thing as absolute truth. Fifty-three per cent of evangelicals believe there are no absolutes. That is cosmic thinking, worldliness in the church; they are thinking like the world. This kind of thinking seeps in everywhere and affects every single one of us in extremely subtle ways.

2.       Modernism came along in the 1600s and dominated western culture up until the early 20th century. It started with Descarte who developed rationalism, and that was combined with the empirical thinking of John Locke and others. Those two system come together to basically emphasise that man can find truth on his own. That period was known as the Enlightenment. They now believed in the ability of man and so were “enlightened.” The Enlightenment came to a crashing halt with the thinking of Immanuel Kant which brought in subjectivism. With Kant there is no longer belief that you can learn that you can learn anything about the absolute. It changes; intellectually you can’t get there anymore. The result is scepticism and philosophical existentialism. You can’t know truth anymore. Scepticism always produces mysticism in the flow of history. Scepticism dominated the 19th and 20th centuries. Postmodernism really finds its beginnings in 1900, the beginning of the 20th century. It doesn’t become popularised until the 1960s.

In biblical Christianity we believe that mankind was created in the image of God, that man is both immaterial and material. The modernist believes that humans are simply material machines and that there is no immaterial soul. So if we go to a secular psychologist who is not a Christian he is going to look at why you do what you do totally in mechanistic terms, it is just genetic, biochemical. So he is just going to treat the problems with some drug because it is not a result of something deeper or more profound such as sin. The universe is therefore purely physical, it runs on itself and nothing exists beyond our own senses—no God, no angels, etc. The postmodernist has no real opinion of human nature, but he is suspicious of any dogmatic assertion. Why? Ultimately in postmodernism there is no absolute truth. So anybody who comes along with any sort of absolute, any dogmatic assertion, is immediately suspect. Therefore man is anything you want him to be. He can be one thing today, something else tomorrow, or he can be both of those contradictory concepts as long as he is happy.

Free will. Man’s volition, responsibility, often is tied together with his free will. In biblical Christianity the will of man is diminished, his ability to love freely is diminished by sin. We are born enslaved to the sin nature. We don’t have free will in the sense that Adam had freedom, but we are still morally responsible, we are not fatalistically determined. But in modernism man is completely independent and self-governing. He can do anything he wants to because he is not a sinner, he is just a creature. There is no such thing as sin and good because those are moral categories you can’t know about. Moral categories don’t apply to machines; machines just do what they are designed to do. So men are autonomous and self-governing and they choose their own direction.

In postmodernism people are the products of their culture, everything is more group oriented, and they only imagine they are self-governing. The fact that you think that you make decisions is just a deception. You really don’t, all your actions are just determined by your group. The emphasis is on group-think, you figure out what group you are in and then you are immediately plugged into that group and that is going to determine how you are going to act and how you are going to think.

The view of reason. In biblical Christianity we recognise that the use of reason and logic are necessary and legitimate, but they are not the ultimate basis for understanding reality; that comes from revelation. Revelation comes from a God who is rational, a God who creates language. Reason, though and language are eternal for the Christian and what we have on earth as image bearers in simply a finite reflection of what God is. In modernism, rationalism and empiricism are independent and the only basis for discovering truth. God does not speak; He is blocked out by that brick. In postmodernism there is no objective reason at all, rationalism is a myth. See, if everything is determined by the group we are in then there is no real thought. What is there? There is just reaction and that which is automatically produced by the group. So rationalism, reason, logic is just a myth. Logic is all determined by your group, it is inherent within language, and that language reflects your culture, everything is predetermined so there is no absolute.

The view of progress. In Christianity we don’t see man as progressing toward anything, i.e. in pre-Millennial dispensationalism. Advances are positive. We have new advances in technology, treatments for diseases, all of which are positive, but there is no utopia that can be brought in by man. It is not going to get better and better. In modernism mankind is progressing because the ultimate hope is man. That is the highest there is; there is no God. Man is the apex of the chain of being so man on the basis of his wonderful reason and knowledge are going to bring in a utopian society. After WW II that really took an hit and is one reason postmodernism rejects modernism.      

3.       There are three factors, then, in postmodernism: a) the collapse of the importance of religious belief. In a pre-modernistic society religious belief was foundational to everything. (It still is, they just don’t      know it) There is no universal consensus of what is true anymore; b) Globalism. After WW II we had expanded communication, expanded travel, all worldviews in the world became familiar with the other worldviews. Everybody claimed to know truth and in the cacophony of truth claims people say, well nobody can know truth so I’m just going to do whatever I think is right, whatever makes me feel good, whatever makes my life work; c) as truth breaks down there is fragmentation and polarisation in society. Everything starts fragmenting and falling apart and going in different directions because everybody is opposed to everybody else, and that is what has generated the culture wars—wars over morality, ethics, what is taught in schools, textbook content, movies, etc.

4.       Christianity teaches that truth is objective and can be known. Postmodernism teaches that human beings make up their own reality—whatever is real for you. There is no real anymore, so whatever you think; multiple realities are equally true.

5.       Postmodernism is more than relativism. In postmodernism meaning is created by the social group and its language. For example, previously in existentialism the emphasis was on the individual—he is alone, he is a non-conformist, he finds meaning through the exercise of his own will. Postmodernism goes beyond simple relativism, it emphasises the fact that meaning or absolutes are created by the social group, whatever that it. There is an emphasis on social identity group-think and everybody has to follow the same fashion trend. In postmodernism what happens is that liberation, true freedom comes from rejecting traditional power structures. Really what they are doing is just putting another power structure in place but they now want to empower whoever they view has been marginalised. Postmodernism is opposed and antagonistic to any kind of objective thinking. They call these objective systems stories or narratives, and those stories are different from culture group to culture group and they control how you think. So you are not free, your thinking is controlled by these cultural narratives, therefore truth is just a fiction, and so every narrative group has its own fictions. Truth, therefore, is just a “construction” (a key word) of language. Therefore to get past anything you have to deconstruct the language. That is why one of the key words is deconstruction. After you read Plato you have to deconstruct it; or the Bible, you have to deconstruct it because it was written by people whose language was shaped by their culture. As soon as you start saying that then everything becomes fluid and you can make it mean whatever you want to because it is basically an attack on truth claims. Postmodernism rejects all truth claims and all narratives as illegitimate and unnecessary. Frameworks are bad, systems are bad, and so we would say this is an inherent attack on doctrine, on systematic theology, and in thinking itself.

6.       For a postmodernist it is impossible to know God, history or reason. History is no longer the objective recording of events that took place. History is now something that is malleable, i.e. everyone has a different view of history, it just depends on what your view is, and we are just going to shape it and shift it to make it whatever agenda we have. Reason is hopeless, it doesn’t go anywhere, and who knows whether or not God exists.

7.       It is impossible for the postmodernist to communicate truth because language shapes what you think and language is just a cultural creation. For the postmodernist language can only communicate perception, and those perceptions are the perceptions of that culture or that group and not absolutes. Therefore meaning and language is just a cultural creation. So meaning just becomes totally fluid now. This leads to the eighth point.

8.       Since there are no absolutes behind language then each person becomes trapped and imprisoned by his own language, culture or group. He can’t know what is outside the language because he is trapped by this language, culture or group. So if you are in a male-dominated Euro-centric background then you are in prison—if you are not male, white, of European background—ands seek to marginalise those who don’t fit the main group. Example: If you were to talk about man then you are automatically excluding woman. Therefore whenever you use the word “woman” the first thing you ought to realise is that you have been excluded by men. Therefore the very term “woman” talks about the fact that women have been abused and the use of the term indicates that they have been marginalised and they need to be returned to a position of power.

9.       Results: a) Moral principles that anchor decisions, that give us a foundation for handling chaos, crisis; moral principles that give us a frame of reference or absolutes for facing any kind of adversity evaporate. Now there is no basis for any kind of stability in terms of crisis; b) People become valued only for what they can contribute to me, to my happiness; not because you are valuable, because of who and what you are created in the image and likeness of God. Now people are valued only for what they can contribute to me; c) Personal pleasure now becomes the ultimate criterion. E.g. if you’re not happy in a job or in marriage, get out. If you are making happiness your criterion then happiness is nothing more than self-absorption and the fact that you are fulfilling your self-absorbed desires. Happiness isn’t the ultimate goal in life; it is the by-product of living your life to the glory of God where you are advancing to spiritual maturity. If you are not doing that you will never be happy; d) In the judicial system where judges use creative rationalism in order to overturn centuries of case law in order to create new laws to fit their own social agenda; e) We see it with journalists who have no concept of absolute truth (not true of all journalists). They write biased news reports which promote their own agenda because whatever happened has no absolute reality; f) It can be seen in he educational system since they have no objective truth to communicate, they just focus on the process and on experiences, not on knowledge.

10.   All knowledge and language depend on the validity of logic. The problem is that they attack language as being able to communicate meaning, but they attack language with language so how can they mean what they think they mean? How do they know they are not just bound by their own social construct? Let’s deconstruct the deconstruction! It is an irrational position but once you reject rationality then irrationality is no longer a problem.

11.   When the rational is replaced aesthetic then we believe what we like; we believe whatever appeals to us, it just becomes a matter of personal taste and personal pleasure. According to this belief is just based on what appeals to you and what is personally pleasurable. That means that belief is a deeply personal preference. So whenever you critique that belief you are critiquing the person. It is taken as a personal insult and challenged.

12.   We live in a society that goes into information overload but they never derive any universal principles from that information. We just get bombarded with facts, facts, this, that and the other thing, and nobody ever draws any universal principles from all that information.

13.   It provides a rationalisation for the sin nature.

Moses and Samuel

Exodus 2:1 NKJV

And a man of the house of Levi went and took as wife a daughter of Levi.

Exodus 2:9 NKJV

Then Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this child away and nurse him for me, and I will give you your wages.” So the woman took the child and nursed him.

1 Samuel 1:20 NKJV

So it came to pass in the process of time that Hannah conceived and bore a son, and called his name Samuel, saying, “Because I have asked for him from the Lord.”

1 Samuel 1:28 NKJV

Therefore I also have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be lent to the Lord.” So they worshiped the Lord there.

Exodus 2:11 NKJV

Now it came to pass in those days, when Moses was grown, that he went out to his brethren and looked at their burdens. And he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his brethren.

Hebrews 11:25 NKJV

choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin,

1 Samuel 2:22 NKJV

Now Eli was very old; and he heard everything his sons did to all Israel, and how they lay with the women who assembled at the door of the tabernacle of meeting.

Exodus 3:3 NKJV

Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.”

1 Samuel 3:3 NKJV

and before the lamp of God went out in the tabernacle of the Lord where the ark of God was, and while Samuel was lying down,

Numbers 12:7 NKJV

Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house.

1 Samuel 3:20 NKJV

And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba knew that Samuel had been established as a prophet of the Lord.

1 Samuel 10:25 NKJV

Then Samuel explained to the people the behavior of royalty, and wrote it in a book and laid it up before the Lord. And Samuel sent all the people away, every man to his house.

Exodus 17:15 NKJV

And Moses built an altar and called its name, The-Lord-Is-My-Banner;

Exodus 24:4 NKJV

And Moses wrote all the words of the Lord. And he rose early in the morning, and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars according to the twelve tribes of Israel.

Leviticus 8:14 NKJV

And he brought the bull for the sin offering. Then Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull for the sin offering,

1 Samuel 7:9 NKJV

And Samuel took a suckling lamb and offered it as a whole burnt offering to the Lord. Then Samuel cried out to the Lord for Israel, and the Lord answered him.

1 Samuel 7:17 NKJV

But he always returned to Ramah, for his home was there. There he judged Israel, and there he built an altar to the Lord.

1 Chronicles 6 NKJV

The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The children of Amram were Aaron, Moses, and Miriam. And the sons of Aaron were Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar. Eleazar begot Phinehas, and Phinehas begot Abishua; Abishua begot Bukki, and Bukki begot Uzzi; Uzzi begot Zerahiah, and Zerahiah begot Meraioth; Meraioth begot Amariah, and Amariah begot Ahitub; Ahitub begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Ahimaaz; Ahimaaz begot Azariah, and Azariah begot Johanan; Johanan begot Azariah (it was he who ministered as priest in the temple that Solomon built in Jerusalem); Azariah begot Amariah, and Amariah begot Ahitub; Ahitub begot Zadok, and Zadok begot Shallum; Shallum begot Hilkiah, and Hilkiah begot Azariah; Azariah begot Seraiah, and Seraiah begot Jehozadak. Jehozadak went into captivity when the Lord carried Judah and Jerusalem into captivity by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar. The sons of Levi were Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. These are the names of the sons of Gershon: Libni and Shimei. The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi. Now these are the families of the Levites according to their fathers: Of Gershon were Libni his son, Jahath his son, Zimmah his son, Joah his son, Iddo his son, Zerah his son, and Jeatherai his son. The sons of Kohath were Amminadab his son, Korah his son, Assir his son, Elkanah his son, Ebiasaph his son, Assir his son, Tahath his son, Uriel his son, Uzziah his son, and Shaul his son. The sons of Elkanah were Amasai and Ahimoth. As for Elkanah, the sons of Elkanah were Zophai his son, Nahath his son, Eliab his son, Jeroham his son, and Elkanah his son. The sons of Samuel were Joel the firstborn, and Abijah the second. The sons of Merari were Mahli, Libni his son, Shimei his son, Uzzah his son, Shimea his son, Haggiah his son, and Asaiah his son. Now these are the men whom David appointed over the service of song in the house of the Lord, after the ark came to rest. They were ministering with music before the dwelling place of the tabernacle of meeting, until Solomon had built the house of the Lord in Jerusalem, and they served in their office according to their order. And these are the ones who ministered with their sons: Of the sons of the Kohathites were Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel, the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah, the son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai, the son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah, the son of Tahath, the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel. And his brother Asaph, who stood at his right hand, was Asaph the son of Berachiah, the son of Shimea, the son of Michael, the son of Baaseiah, the son of Malchijah, the son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah, the son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei, the son of Jahath, the son of Gershon, the son of Levi. Their brethren, the sons of Merari, on the left hand, were Ethan the son of Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluch, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Amaziah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Amzi, the son of Bani, the son of Shamer, the son of Mahli, the son of Mushi, the son of Merari, the son of Levi. And their brethren, the Levites, were appointed to every kind of service of the tabernacle of the house of God. But Aaron and his sons offered sacrifices on the altar of burnt offering and on the altar of incense, for all the work of the Most Holy Place, and to make atonement for Israel, according to all that Moses the servant of God had commanded. Now these are the sons of Aaron: Eleazar his son, Phinehas his son, Abishua his son, Bukki his son, Uzzi his son, Zerahiah his son, Meraioth his son, Amariah his son, Ahitub his son, Zadok his son, and Ahimaaz his son. Now these are their dwelling places throughout their settlements in their territory, for they were given by lot to the sons of Aaron, of the family of the Kohathites: They gave them Hebron in the land of Judah, with its surrounding common-lands. But the fields of the city and its villages they gave to Caleb the son of Jephunneh. And to the sons of Aaron they gave one of the cities of refuge, Hebron; also Libnah with its common-lands, Jattir, Eshtemoa with its common-lands, Hilen with its common-lands, Debir with its common-lands, Ashan with its common-lands, and Beth Shemesh with its common-lands. And from the tribe of Benjamin: Geba with its common-lands, Alemeth with its common-lands, and Anathoth with its common-lands. All their cities among their families were thirteen. To the rest of the family of the tribe of the Kohathites they gave by lot ten cities from half the tribe of Manasseh. And to the sons of Gershon, throughout their families, they gave thirteen cities from the tribe of Issachar, from the tribe of Asher, from the tribe of Naphtali, and from the tribe of Manasseh in Bashan. To the sons of Merari, throughout their families, they gave twelve cities from the tribe of Reuben, from the tribe of Gad, and from the tribe of Zebulun. So the children of Israel gave these cities with their common-lands to the Levites. And they gave by lot from the tribe of the children of Judah, from the tribe of the children of Simeon, and from the tribe of the children of Benjamin these cities which are called by their names. Now some of the families of the sons of Kohath were given cities as their territory from the tribe of Ephraim. And they gave them one of the cities of refuge, Shechem with its common-lands, in the mountains of Ephraim, also Gezer with its common-lands, Jokmeam with its common-lands, Beth Horon with its common-lands, Aijalon with its common-lands, and Gath Rimmon with its common-lands. And from the half-tribe of Manasseh: Aner with its common-lands and Bileam with its common-lands, for the rest of the family of the sons of Kohath. From the family of the half-tribe of Manasseh the sons of Gershon were given Golan in Bashan with its common-lands and Ashtaroth with its common-lands. And from the tribe of Issachar: Kedesh with its common-lands, Daberath with its common-lands, Ramoth with its common-lands, and Anem with its common-lands. And from the tribe of Asher: Mashal with its common-lands, Abdon with its common-lands, Hukok with its common-lands, and Rehob with its common-lands. And from the tribe of Naphtali: Kedesh in Galilee with its common-lands, Hammon with its common-lands, and Kirjathaim with its common-lands. From the tribe of Zebulun the rest of the children of Merari were given Rimmon with its common-lands and Tabor with its common-lands. And on the other side of the Jordan, across from Jericho, on the east side of the Jordan, they were given from the tribe of Reuben: Bezer in the wilderness with its common-lands, Jahzah with its common-lands, Kedemoth with its common-lands, and Mephaath with its common-lands. And from the tribe of Gad: Ramoth in Gilead with its common-lands, Mahanaim with its common-lands, Heshbon with its common-lands, and Jazer with its common-lands.

Exodus 18:2 NKJV

Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, took Zipporah, Moses’ wife, after he had sent her back,

1 Samuel 8:2 NKJV

The name of his firstborn was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they were judges in Beersheba.

1 Chronicles 6:28 NKJV

The sons of Samuel were Joel the firstborn, and Abijah the second.

1 Chronicles 23:16 NKJV

Of the sons of Gershon, Shebuel was the first.

Deuteronomy 34:9 NKJV

Now Joshua the son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, for Moses had laid his hands on him; so the children of Israel heeded him, and did as the Lord had commanded Moses.

1 Samuel 16:13 NKJV

Then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So Samuel arose and went to Ramah.

Moses and Samuel

Prophets who Foreshadowed

THE Prophet,

THE Messiah,

The Lord Jesus Christ

Let’s run through these a little bit, and you’ll see from the comparison how significant Samuel really is:   1. When you look at Moses and compare Moses and Samuel, you discover that they both have remarkable childhoods. Moses’ mother is under threat if she has a male child, so she hides the baby. He’s taken away from his home. He’s put in a little basket and put out on the Nile, and he’s picked up by the daughter of Pharaoh and reared in Pharaoh’s household. He’s taken away from his parents at a young age and reared in the household of strangers. Samuel, when he is weaned (which is probably 3–5 years) is given away by his mother to Eli, and he’s reared in the household of strangers. This is seen in and for Moses; and for Samuel. Both are taken from their parents and reared by others.   2. The second point of comparison, both of them as they matured refused to be influenced by the paganism and apostasy around them. In we see something of Moses. In , it says he was willing to give up the riches of Egypt to take upon the reproach of Christ. He understood his place in history because the writer of Hebrews says for the reproach of Christ; he understood that he played a significant role in the flow to the Messiah. In Samuel doesn’t cave in. He’s not influenced by the apostasy that’s around him through the sons of Eli and all of the apostasy related to temple worship at that time.   3. This is an interesting point of comparison. This doesn’t happen with anybody else. Both Moses and Samuel receive their initial revelations from the Lord as God speaks to them. God speaks to Moses through the burning bush. Samuel is asleep in the temple, and there is a lamp on, and the lamp doesn’t get consumed. The bush doesn’t get consumed; the lamp doesn’t consume the oil. There is something miraculous in terms of the light, which I think speaks of the revelation that they are getting from God. This is seen in and .   4. The fourth area of comparison. In both cases we don’t see this anywhere else. Just with Moses and Samuel. “Moses, Moses!” “Samuel! Samuel!” You see that God addresses them by calling their names twice in and . So God got their attention. This just doesn’t happen by accident.   5. This one is really interesting because the context of how you would translate this into English is different. But if you read this in the Hebrew, the same form of the same adjective is applied to both Moses and Samuel; and this word isn’t applied to any other prophet in the OT. Both are identified by this same adjective, ne’ĕmān. The root is aman, which is the word we say when we say amen. It has to do with being faithful, with believing, with confirming something, consecrating something; and in and , which I put on the board, you have these statements. In , God says “Not so with My servant Moses; he is ne’ĕmān.” It’s translated “faithful in all my house.” But then in we read, “And all Israel from Dan to Beersheba know that Samuel had been established.” Samuel ne’emān as a prophet to the Lord. The same form of the word used in both places applied to only Samuel and Moses. Interesting.   6. The sixth point of comparison. Both are commanded by the Lord at the beginning of their ministries to pronounce a judgment on sinful, corrupt leaders who have abused and oppressed Israel. So Moses of course is pronouncing judgment upon Egypt and the Pharaoh. And Samuel, after he gets his initial revelation from God, which reveals the judgment God is going to bring on Eli and the house of Eli; when Samuel got up in the morning, Eli says, “so, what did God tell you last night?” And Samuel told him everything that God had told him. God is going to judge you and your household and your house will be destroyed.   7. Both of them killed an enemy of Israel with their own hands and immediately afterward went into exile. Now the circumstances were different, but it is a similar pattern. Moses sees an Egyptian overseer abusing a Hebrew slave and he steps in and protects the Hebrew slave and kills the Egyptian overseer. Then he is wanted by Pharaoh for murder; and he flees to Midian. It is a little different scenario, but he protects and he kills an enemy with his own hands and then goes into exile. Samuel’s happens later on in his ministry when Saul has been told to destroy the Amalekites: every man, woman, and child – every single man, woman and child and all their sheep and all their goats and all their cattle – and Saul didn’t do it and left them alive and said well I can probably get some ransom money for Agag the king. I can probably sell the sheep and the goats for something, and they’ve got a lot of jewels and everything. I can make myself rich.   So we are told that when Samuel heard the bleating of sheep, he goes into the tent and says, “What’s this noise I hear?” He turned around and reached over and grabbed Saul’s sword, and he turned around, and the King James says he hacked Agag to pieces. That’s what I call being a true minister of the Lord. That’s ministry. It doesn’t fit most people’s concept of ministry, but that was ministry! And then what? †We don’t hear much from Samuel after that. We only see him when he pops up to anoint David and that’s it. It is a self-imposed exile.   8. The eighth point of comparison. They both wrote down regulations or laws, rules, mispāṭim in the Hebrew that were deposited before the Lord and were used to guide the nation. What Moses wrote down were the Laws, the Torah. Samuel wrote down guidance for the nation under a king, .   9. The ninth point of comparison is that both of them functioned as prophets, priests, and judges. Both are called prophets. Both are called judges, and they both judged Israel. Neither are called priests, but they performed the roles of a priest. They built altars and offered sacrifices. The verses that emphasize that are , , and for Moses; and and for Samuel. He was, according to the genealogy, a descendent from Levi. He was a Levitical priest. He is called an Ephraimite because that’s where his family lived, but he was a Levitical priest.   10. Both stood at the crossroads of Israel’s history. Moses delivers them from slavery in Egypt and takes them to the Promised Land. He has to deal with their griping and complaining the whole way, but he is the deliverer, the promised deliverer who shapes their future taking them out of Egypt. Samuel delivers them and sets the deliverance in motion for the Philistines. In while Samuel is judging Israel, the Philistines are defeated. So they are no longer oppressing Israel in the land as conquers. They are going to be a pain for the rest of the book, but they’re defeated under Samuel’s leadership. Then Samuel anoints king David who will eventually destroy the Philistines.   11. Both of them, Moses and Samuel, had two sons. They each had two sons, but their sons had no significant role in Israel after that. Instead their sons were set apart and unrelated non-family members were called by the Lord to lead Israel from that point forward. ; ; ; cf. ; .

Names of God

Names of God in Genesis  Gen 002

Eleven different names that are used in Genesis to refer to God, primary names that are used of God to teach us, and would have taught the Jews, something about who this God was who had called them as a nation.

1)      El or Elohim is the standard or generic name in Semitic languages for deity. The word El is roughly a cognate for the Arabic word Al or Allah. But that does not mean that they are the same God. The form Elohim where you have that plural ending him, that indicates plurality. Writers often emphasize that the term Elohim is a plural of majesty, so don’t try to read the Trinity into this. But in disagreement with that, in many places this plural noun is used—e.g. Genesis 1:26, 27, “and God [Elohim] said, Let us make man in our image.” So you not only have a plural noun but a plural pronoun that goes along with it. Although that does not necessarily teach the Trinity it certainly suggests a plurality in the Godhead. That is later developed and there are other passages on the Old Testament that give a much clearer indication of the Trinity, but to just dismiss this as a plural of majesty does it a tremendous amount of injustice.

2)      The second word that we find in the text is the word Yahweh. Elohim is used in Genesis chapter one exclusively, you do not find any other name for God in the chapter, and it is not until Genesis chapter two that we are introduced to the title, or God’s personal name, Yahweh. This is based on the sacred tetragrammaton, which means four letters, because in early Hebrew especially there were no vowel points. All there they had were consonants. So there were four letters: YAWH. What has happened is that over the years there have been a tremendous number of Germans working on Hebrew. There were a number of Jews living in the area of Germany who have contributed to this. Remember that in German the Y is written with a J, and the W is pronounced like a V. So that is where the letters J and V are picked up, and then you had JH and VH. Another word that is used in Hebrew which is a generic term for Lord, is the Hebrew word Adonai. It was actually vocalized as having more of an E at the front. So if the vowels E, O, and A are inserted you come up with the name Jehovah. But Jehovah is not a Hebrew word at all, it is a compound of Yahweh plus Adonai. The Jews treated the name of God with reverence, so they would never pronounce Yahweh. Actually they added different vowel points so that the vowel points would remind the reader to read Adonai instead of Yahweh. It was that compound of the consonants from one name and the vowel points from another name that produced this sort of hybrid word, Jehovah. This is one of the problems with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They think that you have to pray everything to Jehovah but Jehovah doesn’t really exist! Yahweh is the personal name for God, and it is emphasized as the covenant name for God for Israel. So whenever they see that name it is going to remind them that this is the God who entered into a personal covenant relationship with Abraham and with Moses, and that this is the God who is the specific God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The key verse for Yahweh is found in Exodus 3:14, “I AM WHO I AM.” This name Yahweh is based on the Hebrew verb hayah, the verb to be or to exist. So it is generally understood that the name of God emphasizes His existence, that it refers to God as the self-existent one and that He is the one who has no beginning and no end.

3)      Frequently we have these first two names in compound: “The LORD God,” Yahweh Elohim. You will always know when Yahweh is at the back of the English word Lord, because in most English Bibles they will make those four letters L-O-R-D in small caps. If you see a name for God, Lord or God, in small caps what underlines that in the Hebrew is the term Yahweh. So Yahweh Elohim takes the generic term God and focuses it on the Yahweh who is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

4)      Genesis 14:18, 19, 20, 22, “The Lord God Most High.” “Most High” is the term El Elyon. This name emphasizes the exalted status of God, that He has overwhelming power. It emphasizes His supreme majesty, and it was the sin of Lucifer to want to be like the Most High. It is referred to in the Psalms. It is El Elyon who is the place of shelter. He is the Rock in the midst of our adversity, our ever present help in time of trouble. In the Psalms it id God who is referred to as El Elyon who has the deepest concern for Israel and for Zion: Ps. 46:6; 87:5. In Genesis 14:22 God is referred to first as the Lord God Most High [El Elyon], and then He is described as the possessor of heaven and earth. That word translated “possessor” is the Hebrew word which means to own something, to possess something, to acquire or purchase something. So it refers to God as the Most High God, the owner of heaven and earth, that He is above all gods and everything that occurs in heaven and earth is under His dominion and under His sovereignty. So this term, El Elyon, is going to emphasize God as the owner of the heavens and the earth and therefore the one who has the right to rule the heavens and the earth. Several times in the Psalms God is referred to as the Most High God, El Elyon: Ps. 47:2, His parallel to a great king, emphasizing His sovereignty, His rule over the universe; 97:9; 91:1, 9, an emphasis on the protection of God for all believers; 78:35.

5)      El Roi, Genesis 16:13, Hagar says, “You are the God who sees.” She uses the verb to see to indicate God’s perceptiveness about people. He knows the future, He knows Hagar’s predicament, and He comes along and predicts her future and the future of her son, Esau. He is the God who sees, and the God who sees her travails and her problems and difficulties is the same God who sees and knows about all of our difficulties and problems.

6)      El Shaddai. This term is used twice in Genesis, 17:1 & 35:11, and it means God the Almighty. It emphasizes God’s power. This term is used most often in Job. It is used 48 times in the Old Testament, 31 of them in Job. Job is the book where we see the hero, Job, going through the most difficult suffering imaginable. It is in the context of that suffering that God is referred to as God the Almighty, that He is more powerful than any difficulties we can face in time. The name emphasizes His omnipotence, His ability to perform whatever He desires.

7)      El Olam, the eternal or everlasting God, Genesis 21:33. Here it emphasizes God’s attribute of eternal life, that God has neither beginning nor ending. He is the self-existent one, not simply an uncaused cause; He is a person. He has no beginning and no ending and all of His attributes are infinite.

8)      Jehovah-jireh, which actually in the Hebrew is Yahweh-jireh. It is found in Genesis 22:14 in the context of Abraham following God’s command to sacrifice Isaac. The emphasis in the name is that God supplies all of our needs, especially our need for salvation.

9)      Yahweh the God of the heavens, Genesis 24:7. That indicates his sovereignty over all of the heavens, that God is the king of the heavens, the ruler of the heavens, the ruler of the earth and the affairs of mankind.

10)   El Elohe Israel, the God of Israel, .

11)   The final name is really a title, a description of God, “The Shepherd or Rock of Israel.” Genesis 49:24. This emphasizes God as the leader of Israel, the shepherd of Israel. He is the one who takes care for Israel. It is God who protects and provides for Israel in the wilderness. It emphasizes His role as the leader and protector of Israel.

These eleven names and titles emphasize the character and attributes of God that are learned in the book of Genesis.

Naturalism

I have four points to summarize the worldview of naturalism. 

First of all, naturalism espouses that matter exists eternally and is all that there is, there is no supernatural being or beings.  All that there is quantifiable, it’s measurable, it’s material, it’s physical, there is no immaterial or supernatural.  This is the starting point of naturalism.

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‎The second principle of naturalism is that the cosmos, the universe exists as a uniformity of cause and effect in a closed system.  What that means is everything is inside the box and if there’s anything outside the box, we can’t know what is out there, we don’t know what is out there, and if there is anything outside the box it can’t affect anything inside the box.  And the box represents the known universe.  If I were to chart it this way I would draw a box and everything that happens in the universe takes place within this box and anything outside this box is unknown and unknowable.  The problem with this is it leads to circular thinking.  If the only thing you can know is what’s inside the box then that becomes your presupposition and if something comes from outside the box, then by definition you’ve excluded knowledge of it, so if something comes from outside the box by definition it can’t come inside the box, so now it doesn’t exist because I said it can’t exist, so you’re always looking for a sign but no sign is ever acceptable enough because it comes from outside the box.  This happened even among the religious leaders of Jesus’ time; it’s interesting, every time they asked for a sign Jesus had just performed a miracle.  He had just fed the 5,000 with five fish and two loaves and they say give us a sign.  He’d just raise Lazarus from the dead and they said give us a sign.  So it’s not a matter of empirical data, it’s a matter of the will.

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‎The third point is that according to naturalism man is a complex of inner relationships of material particles, DNA, genetic makeup and environment.  There is no immaterial part of man, there’s no soul.  Everything, therefore, is just material.  This is reflected in a quote from John Updike, The Pigeon Feathers.  He captures the real implications of this when he writes: “Without warning David was visited by an exact vision of death, a long hole in the ground no wider than your body, down which you were buried while the white faces recede.  You try to reach them but your arms are pinned.  Shovels pour dirt in your face.  There you will be forever in an upright position, blind and silent, and in time no one will remember you, and you will never be called.  As strata of rocks shift your fingers elongate and your teeth are distended sideways in a great underground grimace indistinguishable from a strip of chalk.  The earth tumbles on and the sun expires, an unfaltering darkness rings where once there were stars.  How depressing, how meaningless life becomes.”

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‎And that’s the problem today, this is the worldview that dominates on many campuses, so many schools, and so many homes, is that people despair of the meaning of life. 

And that’s the fourth point that death extinguishes existence.  Ernest Nagel said that life was an episode between two oblivions.  The point is that naturalism falls apart because it basically assumes that you can’t know what’s out there so if God is out there and speaks to our existence, then we automatically discredit it because we presuppose that He can’t do it.  So naturalism deteriorates and collapses into irrationalism and that always happens, is that human viewpoint systems always flux between rationalism and irrationalism; they move from the rationalism of the Enlightenment and now the mysticism of post-modernism.  And it bounces back and forth because the only third acceptable option is that God speaks and God communicates.  And that’s unacceptable to man who is in rebellion against Him.

New Jerusalem

New Jerusalem in the Old Testament.  RD/Rev. 080b

1)      New Jerusalem only appears three times in

Revelation: 3:12; 21:2; 21:10.

2)      It is distinct from the Millennial Jerusalem which is the earthly city of Jerusalem.

3)      The new Jerusalem was implied, if not specifically discussed, by Old Testament prophets, e.g. Isaiah 65:16; 66:20-22 NASB “Then they shall bring all your brethren from all the nations as a grain offering to the LORD, on horses, in chariots, in litters, on mules and on camels, to My holy mountain Jerusalem,” says the LORD, “just as the sons of Israel bring their grain offering in a clean vessel to the house of the LORD. I will also take some of them for priests {and} for Levites,” says the LORD. For just as the new heavens and the new earth Which I make will endure before Me,” declares the LORD, “So your offspring and your name will endure.”

Nicene Creed

Nicene Creed                                    RD/Heb. 030b

We believe in one God the Father all Governing, creator of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father as only begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not created, of the same essence as the Father, through whom all things came into being, both in heaven and on earth; Who for us and for our salvation came down and was incarnate becoming human. He suffered and on the third day He rose, and ascended in to the heavens and He will come to judge both the living and the dead.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit.

Nike Awards

Revelation, chapters 2 and 3 reveal seven Nike Awards containing 13 escrow blessings:

1. The 1st Nike Award:

(1) The privilege to eat from the tree of life.

(2) Eternal Membership in the Paradise Club of God.

Revelation 2:7 - “To him who is a winner I will give him the privilege of eating from the Tree of Life which is in the Paradise Club of God.”

2. The 2nd Nike Award:

(3) The Crown, Corona, Coronet, or Stšfanoj / stephanos / of life.

Revelation 2:10 - “Keep on becoming faithful unto death and I will give you the Crown of life.”

3. The 3rd Nike Award:

(4) Christened with a new name of aristocracy.

Revelation 2:17 - “To him who is a winner, I will give blessing from the source of the hidden manna [escrow blessings in time ], and I will give him a white stone [ (R.D.access to a fiest & fellowship) (J.G. resurrection body) ]; furthermore, on the stone has been written a new name of aristocracy, which new name of aristocracy no one knows except the one who receives it.”

4. The 4th Nike Award:

(5) Assignment to and rulership authority over a nation in the Millennial theocracy.

(6) Investiture into the eternal order of chivalry, the Most Noble Order of the Morning Star.

Revelation 2:26 - “And so the winner, even he who keeps My assignments until the end [ physical death ], ‘To Him [ The Lord quotes Psalm 2:8-9 where this pronoun refers to the Messiah but here the Messiah Himself addresses winners to whom He is presenting a Nike Award ] I will give authority over the Gentile Nations.’”

NOTE: In verse 27 the quote by our Lord continues from Psalm 2, therefore the pronouns still refer to winners who are being delegated authority by the Messiah, Who in turn received His authority from the Father in

Revelation 2:27 - “’And so He [the winner] will rule them [the nations] with an iron scepter. He will shatter them as clay pottery [with delegated authority from Messiah winners execute divine policy in their respective nations (this is the end of the quote from Psalm 2) ].’ I [Jesus Christ] also have received My authority from My Father.

Revelation 2:28 - “Furthermore, I will give to him [Church Age winner] the

Order of the Morning Star.”

5. The 5th Nike Award:

(7) Invested with a uniform of glory.

(8) Permanent listing of the new title of peerage from the 3rd Nike into the Book of Life.

(9) Presentation at Court to the Father with formal introduction conducted by Jesus Christ.

Revelation 3:4 - “But you have a few persons in Sardis [Pivot] who have not soiled their clothes [uniform of honor], in fact, they will walk with Me in whites [uniform of glory] because they are worthy.

Revelation 3:5 - “Thus the winner shall be clothed in white garments [uniform of glory] and I will not ever blot his new title of aristocracy [ see the 3rd Nike ] out of the Book of Life, in fact, I will present him at court using his new title of aristocracy in the presence of My Father and before His angels.”

6. The 6th Nike Award:

(10) Achievements in the Angelic Conflict permanently catalogued onto a stela in the temple of God in heaven.

(11) The grant of a coat of arms blazoned to the uniform of glory.

(12) Entrée into the new Jerusalem.

Revelation 3:12 - “The winner, I will make him a stela [eternal documentation of the winner’s invisible achievements in time] in the temple of My God [historical records department]. Furthermore, he will not ever vanish from history [because of these achievements]. Also I will blazon on his uniform of glory [ a grant of a coat of arms ] the following charges [ heraldic devices placed on the field of arms ]: the title of My God [ a gold sovereign’s crown charged to a field of blue ]; the name of the city of My God, the new Jerusalem, which comes down from the immediate source of heaven from the ultimate source of My God [ a green tree of life charged to a field of gold ];

Also My new name [a golden lion rampant, double-tailed with a sovereign’s crown on his head, and an iron scepter in his right forepaw charged to a field of red].”

7. The 7th Nike Award:

(13) Appointment to the General Assembly of the true United Nations in the theocracies of both the Millennium and the new earth.

Revelation 3:21 - “The winner, I [ Jesus Christ as Secretary General of the UN ] will give him the privilege of sitting with Me on My throne [ appointment to the general assembly of the theocracies of the Millennium and the new earth ] as I have been victorious [ operation reconciliation ] and have sat down with My Father on His throne [ session ].”

Ninth Century Israel and the U. S.

Ninth CENTURY ISRAEL AND THE U.S.    RD/Kings 050

1. Fools live in a fantasy world and make policy based on fallacy.

2. Life was not important.

3. Success and the worship of material prosperity was foremost.

4. The result of religious decisions ultimately impact policy decisions.

5. Those who stand up for absolutes and objective Truth will be demonized, marginalized, and criminalized.

9TH Century B.C. Israel and the U.S.    RD/Kings 054b

1. A biblical framework has been replaced by a pagan worldview.

2. Success and the worship of material prosperity was foremost.

3. Fools live in a fantasy world and make policy based on fallacy.

4. Life is viewed as disposable.

5. The result of religious decisions ultimately impact policy decisions.

6. Those who stand up for absolutes and objective Truth will be demonized, marginalized, and criminalized.

Noahic Covenant

Three reasons you’re glad the Noahic Covenant is still in effect.                          RD/Heb 114b

   1. Because it authorizes capital punishment.

   2. Because you can go eat a prime rib.

   3. Because you know that God’s not going to destroy the earth by water again.

Objective of the Church Age

Objective of the Church Age          Rd/ Rev. 069b

There is a twin objective in the church age for every believer, and thus for every local congregation. That is expressed by evangelism and edification. It is through the evangelistic efforts of individual believers that God has chosen to bring unbelievers to a knowledge of who Jesus Christ is and what he did on the cross. It is not going to happen apart from the use of human beings to do that. And that is one of the great privileges that we have, that God can use us to explain the gospel to those who are lost, who are confused, who are searching, so that they can hear the truth, that they can be saved by faith alone in Christ alone, that they can be freed from the shackles of religion and from the servitude of sin, and that only comes by putting out faith alone in Christ alone. That is accomplished through every believer. We can be involved in that aspect of evangelism, either directly or indirectly. We can be involved directly because it is our responsibility to communicate the gospel to whomever is around us, to whomever God gives us the opportunity. We never know who it will be or what the circumstances will be. We are saved for a purpose and part of that purpose is evangelism directly, but also indirectly. We do that through missionaries.

The second objective is edification. That is, the training of the members of the body of Christ to do the work of ministry—Ephesians 4:11, 12, that the gifts of pastor-teacher and evangelism are given to the church for the purpose of equipping believers to do the work of the ministry.

Offering, The Burnt and Meal

We’ve looked at the first two – the burnt offering and the meal offering.  A couple of things we ought to note.  RD/Heb/128c

   1. First of all, the location of the brazen altar speaks of the need of a sacrificial atonement, a substitution.   Prior to entering into God’s presence there has to be an expiation for sin.  There has to be a satisfaction.  There has to be the removal of guilt.  That’s what that term expiation means.  It means the removal of guilt.  The guilt that we have is the guilt from Adam’s sin.  So there has to be this sacrificial atonement.  When you get into Leviticus 1, these instructions are to Israel who is already viewed as a redeemed people.  When were they redeemed as a nation - not individual redemption, corporately as a nation? When were they redeemed from slavery?  In the Exodus event as they come out of Egypt.  That pictures their national redemption.  So when they then come to the Tabernacle to worship God they are coming and the picture is that they’re coming as those who are already saved.  Now of course these all picture elements related to what we would call positional sanctification or what occurs on the cross when Christ died; but the reality is that the sacrifices provide the basis for the ongoing fellowship and relationship of the worshipper to God.  The principle is this recognition that there has to be a cleaning of sin continuously because we continue to sin.  When we sin that breaks fellowship with God.  When we sin there is a change in our relationship not in terms of its eternal realities (we can’t lose our salvation) but in terms of that day-to-day ongoing fellowship.  Darkness has entered into the relationship and that has to be cleansed.  The basis is always the same which is the blood of Christ.  I John 1:7 lays the foundation that we are cleansed - continually cleansed (present tense) – by the blood of Christ.  But if that meant we didn’t have to confess our sins, that there didn’t have to be some dynamic of ongoing cleansing when we get out of fellowship; then I John 1:9 would not have needed to have been stated.  So I John 1:7 is stated first to give us the foundation.  It’s the finished, completed work of Christ our positional forgiveness, our positional cleansing; but in the day-to-day experience we have to admit (acknowledge) our sin because it teaches us to focus on the fact that there’s ongoing sin.  We can’t slip into arrogance.  We can’t slip into pride. That’s the same lesson that’s taught again and again and again in the Mosaic Law.  There are all these regulations about what can render you unclean – not only sin, but many activities that are not sinful in and of themselves; but they relate to sin.  They’re involved with sin – touching a dead body.  A woman who gives birth is unclean. Why?  Because that goes back to the curse that for the women their pain in childbirth will be multiplied.  Touching a dead body – physical death is a consequence of sin.  Eating certain animals that were carrion eaters and were like catfish or shrimp or lobster – all the good stuff.  You couldn’t eat it because they ate off the dead stuff that’s at the bottom of the ocean.  So that is connected to the penalty of sin.  So God uses this to teach in visual aids about salvation, to teach about ongoing relationship with Him and that He provides everything.    2. So we saw that the foundational offering was the burnt offering.  Not always the first thing that comes in, but when the offerings are combined (when there is a burnt offering, a peace offering and a guilt offering.) the burnt offering is always the first one because that is the foundational offering.  So we saw that the burnt offering (just in terms of a summary) is a picture of fellowship with God.  It is a picture of fellowship with God, positional or experiential, because they’re both grounded in the one event of Christ’s death on the cross.  So the burnt offering pictures the work of Christ on the cross as a substitutionary blood sacrifice.  In the act of bringing the sacrifice, the worshipper lays his hand on the head of the burnt offering which is a picture of identification.  It’s a picture of transfer of his guilt to the animal. It is an innocent animal without defect and so the animal is brought (after observation) to be sacrificed.  We saw that these burnt offerings were the basic offering every day in the Temple, every morning, every evening and that this is the foundation for the ongoing relationship for people with God.  So the burnt offerings were practiced as early as Genesis 8:20 when Noah came off the ark and also in Genesis the sacrifice in relationship to Isaac was a burnt offering.  It is through the burnt offering that they experienced real forgiveness even though those offerings themselves could not take away sin and guilt because the blood of bulls and goats (as we will see when we get into Hebrews 10) can’t take away sin.  But, nevertheless we’re specifically told in the Scripture not only that God forgave them - again and again you have statements that God forgives them on the basis of these sacrifices because of what they picture.

   2. The second offering we got into last time was the meal offering or sometimes called the gift offering or the tribute offering.  This is a bloodless offering.  It was a raw grain offering.  It was the finest of grain that was brought.  It was mixed with oil and the offering was baked or it was grilled or pan fried.  It could be brought raw.  No leaven or honey was to be used with it because that’s a picture of sin.  It’s to be from the first fruits of the harvest.  In some cases it’s to be seasoned with salt as a reminder of the permanence of God’s covenant with Israel.  Now last time we went through the various facets of the meal offering noting that the fine flour which was very expensive in some passages such as Ezekiel 16:13 and II Kings 7:1. It is seen as a luxury item and compared with gold and silver in terms of its value.   It represents the value of the sacrifice and in terms of its representation of Jesus Christ it pictures the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ.  The pouring of oil on it in verse 1 depicts the anointing of the Messiah which is a picture of the fact that He has been appointed by God for a reason and for a purpose.   The frankincense that is also part of the offering would produce a sweet smell indicated that God accepts the sacrifice of Christ on the behalf of the believer.

Now one of the things that I noted was another aspect to this sacrifice - the grain offering of first fruits that’s described in verse 14.  I ran out of time last time and didn’t get a chance to develop this too much, but it’s an important passage.

Now if you have your Bible and read it, you will note especially in the New American Standard text that this verse reveals that God is really a southerner.  If you notice in the text in both verse 14 and verse 16 that the green heads of grain (that’s how it is translated in the King James) is translated as grits.  God likes grits!  So that means God’s a southerner.   I have never met a Yankee yet that liked grits.  So this tells us God is not only a southerner; but He also likes beer because later on we’ll see that there’s a strong drink offering.  Most people think that that means something other than beer or wine.  That’s all that they had back then.  Nobody knew how to distill beverages and make scotch or vodka or anything like that until 8th or 9th century AD.  So the only thing a strong drink offering could be is wine or beer.  The word translated strong drink means barley beer.  So just something you can remember - something you can entertain your friends and neighbors with sometime is that God likes grits and He likes beer.  Just a little bit of Bible trivia that you need to remember.

Now in conclusion to the grain offering and the emphasis and the role of the oil – the oil is a picture of the ministry of the God the Holy Spirit.

We have several points to cover in the relationship to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ.  

Offering, The Peace or Fellowship

The peace offering or the fellowship offering.  I’m going to cover this in about 9 points - 9 points of summary just to break it down into its basic components.   RD/Heb/128c

   1. First of all, in terms of the nomenclature it’s known as a fellowship offering or a peace offering even though the other offerings also talk about fellowship.  This is an offering that is a celebration of the fact that we already have peace with God.  We already have fellowship with God.  It is not like the burnt offering which is a picture of regaining fellowship or maintaining ongoing fellowship.  It’s not like the sin offering or the trespass offering.  It’s dealing with the confession and cleansing after the commission of sin.  This is a celebration of ongoing offering.  That is because this is the only one of these sacrifices that involves the worshipper eating part of the sacrifice.  It was a celebration in Israel.  They would have a feast and they would sit down and eat from the sacrifice.  It is a picture of the idea of sitting and eating a meal with someone as a picture of fellowship.  It’s a picture of partnership and communion which is a background to understanding the imagery in the Lord’s Table.  The peace offering itself could be part of many other offerings.  It could be part of a thank offering.  It could be part of an individual praise related to the individual praise psalms or it could be a corporate praise related to declarative praise psalms.  It could be as a result of the fulfillment of a vow as we see in Leviticus 7: 16-7 and Numbers 6:17-20.  It could in the fulfillment of a vow, Leviticus 7:16-7 and Numbers 6:17-20.  In I Samuel 1 Hannah after becoming pregnant and giving birth to a son goes to the Temple and offers a peace offering.  She brings 3 young bulls.  She brings an ephah of flour and a skin of wine in payment of her vow for the provision of Samuel.  So part of her vow fulfillment was a peace offering.  All of that - the three young bulls and the ephah of flour - indicates a very well-to-do, prosperous household.

The word that is used here that’s translated peace for peace offering comes from the same word that is used for a greeting in Hebrew – Shalom.  It’s a word for peace.  It is the word salem meaning – in the hiphil stem it means to make peace, to fulfill or to surrender.  It is recognition that the peace that we have with God has already been accomplished and now we are enjoying the benefits of that.  It is reminiscent of what Paul says in Romans 5:1.

NKJ Romans 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

That is our position.  We have been reconciled to God.

   2. The second thing we should note under point #2 in terms of the terminology is that the use of salem here in the qal stem indicates a peaceful relationship already in existence.  This is supported in the Septuagint by the use of the word soterion.  It’s in light of deliverance that has already been accomplished.  So it’s a celebration of a past event in the present ongoing reality.    3. The mechanics.  We are beginning to deal with the mechanics of the offering.   The peace offering could be from the herd and it could be male or female.  Now in other offerings the emphasis would be that it would be either a male or female.  But, here it could be either male or female.  We’re not sure what the distinction was or why in some offerings it’s male and other offerings it’s female.  I don’t know.  I haven’t read that anybody else who has clue either so I’m not going to speculate.  The peace offering could be from the herd.  That would mean from the cattle.  Or it could be from the flock, either sheep or goats, either one.  But they had to be without defect.  So there would have to be an evaluation period and it would have to be clear that there’s no defect.  Once again that pictures the impeccability of the Lord Jesus Christ in His humanity that He was without sin and therefore qualified to go to the cross and pay our penalty for us. 

In verse 2 we read:

NKJ Leviticus 3:2 'And he

That is the offeror.

shall lay his hand on the head of his offering, and kill it

He slays it.  He slaughters it at the door of the Tabernacle of Meeting.  So the Tabernacle of Meeting is outside the Holy of Holies.  He kills it at the door.

at the door of the tabernacle of meeting; and Aaron's sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood all around on the altar.

Now that’s not really a good analogy.  Sprinkling - I always think of is you know if you are ironing.  See I like to iron.  I was taught to iron years ago.  I iron everything.  You just kind of dip your hand in water and sprinkle a little bit there.   It seems so weak and wimpy a concept.  This is a splattering of the blood.  All of this pictures something.  It’s violent.  The sin is violent.  This is supposed to picture something that is horrible in terms of the payment of a penalty.  So the blood is taken and splattered against the sides of the altar.  So the person bringing the sacrifice brings it up.  Aaron’s sons (the priests) splatter the blood all around the altar in verse 2.

In verse 3

NKJ Leviticus 3:3 'Then he shall offer from the sacrifice of the peace offering an offering made by fire to the LORD. The fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails,

So part of it is consumed as a burnt offering.  This would include the fat that covers the entrails and all of the fat that is on the entrails.  You ask the question – well, why the fat?  What is so significant about the fat?  Well, this shows that this is a healthy animal. This is an animal that has been well-fed, an animal that is not just skinny or ill so it pictures the fact that the giving of this animal is the giving of something that has value and this is something that is significant.

   4. So the one who brings the offering lays his hand on the heavy offering. It’s a picture of identification and substitution.  Again and again we see this picture that there must be a substitute for us to have a relationship with God.  Man can’t do it on his own.  There has to be a substitute.    5. The sacrifice is offered by fire.  The fat burns the entrails - the fat on the entrails, the fat around the kidney, the fat around the liver and from the sheep.  The Palestinian sheep have these large (larger than other sheep) fat tails.  They would burn that upon the fire.  That must have smelled good – like a good barbeque.  That’s the sweet savor offering because these 3 offerings are sweet savor offerings.  There’s no burning of the hide because the animal is skinned.  The entrails are cleansed so all of the stuff that is inside the guts and all of the fecal material that’s inside the colon and everything…the entrails - it’s all cleaned out so you’re cooking the meat.  You’re cooking the fat so that’s going to have a good smell to it.  So if you live downwind of the Tabernacle, you probably would often think about having a good steak for dinner.  So Leviticus 3:17 shows that there is a permanent statute against the eating of the blood or the fat of the sacrifice.  Now why that?  Well, first of all there is the prohibition against eating the blood because blood is a picture of life.  The picture here is that the blood is not to be eaten.  The blood of the sacrifice is to be poured out.  It is a picture of death. The reason that the fat of the sacrifice was not offered is because what makes the sacrifice valuable (It’s a picture of the value and the worth of the sacrifice.) is to be consumed upon the altar.  That which is of value belongs to God.  It is a picture that that which is valuable in our lives belongs to God.  Our lives are not for us to just use and live out on our own terms.  But, everything belongs to God.  He is the one who has supplied everything.  So the picture in all of these sacrifices deals with the consumption of fat upon the altar as a picture of the believers’ commitment and a recognition that everything that he has in life is from God and belongs to God.  Also the fact that the liver would be consumed would prohibit or keep people from taking the livers and using them in hepatoscopy which is the use of the liver to tell fortunes.  They would do various means of divination in the pagan religions.  So the liver and these other parts are burned also to prevent that from taking place.    6. So point number 6, in terms of the basic procedure the worshipper presents the offering.  It’s examined.  He slaughters it himself.  Later on the priest would do that.  But, initially the individual was supposed to do it so you experience the impact of your sin in causing the death of the animal.  The priest would apply the blood to the altar to the horns of the altar and then burn various parts of the offering.  The fat was removed and burned which represents the choicest parts of the animal - that everything in our lives that is of value belongs to God.    7. Point 7 is the picture that everything is offered on the altar.  It is designated as food.   It is designated as food which indicates that God doesn’t need it to eat.  God doesn’t eat it, so who’s eating it?   Well, the worshippers are eating it.  It’s a picture of that shared communion and the celebration of what God has provided.  So point 7, all is offered on the altar (the burnt offering), but the offering is food.  So this food is shared with the worshipper and others with him.  Often they would have a feast or a banquet there which illustrates fellowship.  They are celebrating the joy of their fellowship with God.    8. Under point 8, we have the fact, the emphasis on blood that runs all the way through these sacrifices.  The idea of blood is a picture of something.  It is a picture of guilt and it is a picture of death.  When something bleeds, it dies.  You have phrases such as Leviticus 20:9 “His blood shall be upon Him”.  That’s using blood as a figure of speech for guilt.  In the Old Testament and passages such as Deuteronomy 12:23 - life is equated with blood.  So when the blood comes out, life is gone.  In passages such as Genesis 9:6 when it states:

NKJ Genesis 9:6 "Whoever sheds man's blood, By man his blood shall be shed; For in the image of God He made man.

That’s a picture of a violent death, a murder.  But it doesn’t mean that it’s restricted only to those situations where somebody actually bleeds.  Poisoning, strangulation, all of these other kinds of murders would also come under that same category.  So blood is a picture of death.  This is why the blood is to be collected.  The blood is put on the horns of the altar.  The blood is splattered on the base of the veil inside the Holy Place.  In the sin offering with the priest, the blood is poured out on the base of the altar.  All of these things happen to indicate that it is the blood (that is the death of the sacrifice) that is the basis for the relationship with God.

   9. So in conclusion, this offering reflects an ongoing fellowship or communion with God and is thus an expression of joy or celebration over our relationship with God.  It’s a perpetual statue.

NKJ Leviticus 3:17 ' This shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations in all your dwellings: you shall eat neither fat nor blood.' "

Omnipotents of God

Omnipotents of God  Gen 002

Then we see an emphasis that God is omnipotent throughout Genesis.

1)      He is the one who creates the heavens and the earth, and every detail within the earth. God is in control of all of the details of creation, and certainly God can oversee the details in our lives.

2)      He creates the human race, mankind, and sustains mankind. God is all-powerful.

3)      He prevents Enoch from dying in Genesis chapter five. Enoch walked with the Lord and he was not. He did not die, he just walked off into heaven with God one day.

4)      He controls the time and the duration and the extent of the world-wide flood at the time of Noah.

5)      He protects Abraham--Genesis 15—from the assaults of the four kings.

6)      God controls the womb. In many cases He closes the womb so that Sarah, Rebecca and Rachel could not give birth. This is not because God was mean-spirited, but God was teaching that He alone brings life where there is deadness. It is a picture of our spiritual life where there is spiritual death. Genesis 20, 21, 25, 30.

7)      God controls the fertility of the flock, so that when Jacob is raising his flock separate from Laban’s flock, and Laban sets up conditions, all of a sudden all then sheep are giving birth to spotted lambs. So Jacob is blessed. Whatever conditions Laban set up Jacob continued to prosper because God is the one who controls the fertility of the flocks.

8)      God is the one who can cripple a man. He cripples Jacob with simply the touch of His hand—Genesis 32.

Order of Elective Decrees

II. The Order of Elective Decrees

Of all the decrees of God, reaching out as they do to infinity, five are related directly to the purpose of God in election as it pertains to those who comprise the Church, the Body of Christ. The problem which presents itself to the mind of thoughtful and devout men is as to the order which these five decrees maintain in the mind of God. The arrangement, being logical rather than chronological, is somewhat speculative and yet great issues are involved. By the term logical is meant that, though the entire program is as one thought in the mind of God, the principle of cause and effect is evidently involved. That is, one issue may prepare the way and thus become the cause of another. These specific decrees are here named, but without regard at this time as to the right order which they sustain.

(1) The decree to elect some to salvation and leave others to their just condemnation.

(2) The decree to create all men.

(3) The decree to permit the fall.

(4) The decree to provide salvation for men.

(5) The decree to apply salvation to men.

Four schools of interpretation are recognized, each contending for a specific order in the arrangement of these elective decrees. These schools are: the supralapsarian, the infralapsarian, the sublapsarian, and the Arminian; the first three being classed as Calvinistic. Though the defense of these varying orders concerns primarily the one subject—the election of some to be saved and the leaving of others to a just condemnation, the titles by which three of these schools are identified relates them to the fall of man. The word lapsarian refers to one who believes in the doctrine that man is a fallen being. Of this particular line of investigation, Dr. Charles Hodge writes this qualifying word: “It is to be borne in mind that the object of these speculations is not to pry into the operation of the divine mind, but simply to ascertain and exhibit the relation in which the several truths revealed in Scripture concerning the plan of redemption bear to each other” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 321). A more detailed consideration of each of the claims advanced by each of these schools is here presented:

1. The Order Set Forth by the Supralapsarians.

This group is sometimes styled the High Calvinists or the Ultra Calvinists. The primary issue in the order proposed by this school of interpreters is that the decree to elect some and to reprobate all others stands first in the order of decrees and by this disposal of God He is declared to have elected men to their destiny before they sin and without a cause, except it be by the sovereign will of God. It is true that God, as First Cause, effected man’s existence knowing who would be reprobate; but this responsibility, like that of the presence of sin in the world, is never reckoned from the creature back upon God. Earlier in this immediate discussion, it was concluded that divine election precedes the determination to provide a Savior. The present issue is as to the order which obtains between the decree to elect and the decree to permit the fall.

The order as defended by the Supralapsarians is:

(1) Decree to elect some to be saved and to reprobate all others.

(2) Decree to create men both elect and non-elect.

(3) Decree to permit the fall.

(4) Decree to provide salvation for the elect.

(5) Decree to apply salvation to the election.

On this view as held by the Supralapsarians, Dr. William G. T. Shedd remarks: “The supralapsarian theory places, in the order of decrees, the decree of election and preterition before the fall, instead of after it. It supposes that God begins by decreeing that a certain number of men shall be elected, and reprobated. This decree is prior even to that of creation, in the logical order…. The objections to this view are the following: (a) The decree of election and preterition has reference to a non-entity. Man is contemplated as creatable, not as created. Consequently, the decree of election and preterition has no real object…. Man is only ideally existent, an abstract conception; and therefore any divine determination concerning him, is a determination concerning non-entity. But God’s decrees of election and reprobation suppose some actually created beings, from which to select and reject. ‘On whom he will, he hath mercy; and whom he will, he hardeneth,’ Rom 9:18. The first decree, in the order of nature, must therefore be a decree to create. God must bring man into being, before he can decide what man shall do or experience. It is no reply to say, that man is created in the Divine idea, though not in reality, when the decree of predestination is made. It is equally true that he is fallen, in the Divine idea, when this decree is made. And the question is, What is the logical order, in the divine idea, of the creation and the fall? (b) The Scriptures represent the elect and nonelect, respectively, as taken out of an existing aggregate of beings. John 15:19, ‘I have chosen you out of the world.’ (c) The elect are chosen to justification and sanctification. Eph 1:4–6; 1 Pet 1:2. They must therefore have been already fallen, and consequently created. God justifies ‘the ungodly,’ Rom 4:5; and sanctifies the unholy. (d) The supralapsarian reprobation is a Divine act that cannot presuppose sin, because it does not presuppose existence. But the Scriptures represent the non-elect as sinful creatures. In Jude 4, the men who were ‘of old ordained to this condemnation’ are ‘ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.’ Accordingly, the Westminster Confession (III, 7) affirms that God passes by the non-elect, and ‘ordains them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.’ The supralapsarian quotes Rom 9:11, in proof of his assertion that election and preterition are prior to the creation of man. ‘The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil,’ Jacob was chosen and Esau was left. This is an erroneous interpretation. Birth is not synonymous with creation. Parents are not the creators of their children. Man exists before he is born into the world. He exists in the womb; and he existed in Adam” (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I, pp. 442, 443).

2. The Order Set Forth by Infralapsarians.

According to this school—properly called moderate Calvinists—the distinctive issue is that the decree to elect some and to leave others in retribution follows the fall, the order they defend, therefore, being:

(1) Decree to create all men.

(2) Decree to permit the fall.

(3) Decree to provide salvation for men.

(4) Decree to elect those who do believe and to leave in just condemnation all who do not believe.

(5) Decree to apply salvation to those who believe.

Dr. Charles Hodge is one, among several, who makes no distinction between the infralapsarian and sublapsarian views by not mentioning the latter. What he writes, therefore, combines these to some extent. Of the Infralapsarians he says: “That this view is self-consistent and harmonious. As all the decrees of God are one comprehensive purpose, no view of the relation of the details embraced in that purpose which does not admit of their being reduced to unity can be admitted. In every great mechanism, whatever the number or complexity of its parts, there must be unity of design. Every part bears a given relation to every other part, and the perception of that relation is necessary to a proper understanding of the whole. Again, as the decrees of God are eternal and immutable, no view of his plan of operation which supposes Him to purpose first one thing and then another can be consistent with their nature. And as God is absolutely sovereign and independent, all his purposes must be determined from within or according to the counsel of his own will. They cannot be supposed to be contingent or suspended on the action of his creatures, or upon anything out of Himself. The infralapsarian scheme, as held by most Augustinians, fulfils all these conditions. All the particulars form one comprehensive whole. All follow in an order which supposes no change of purpose; and all depend on the infinitely wise, holy, and righteous will of God. The final end is the glory of God. For that end He creates the world, allows the fall; from among fallen men He elects some to everlasting life, and leaves the rest to the just recompense of their sins. Whom He elects He calls, justifies, and glorifies. This is the golden chain the links of which cannot be separated or transposed. This is the form in which the scheme of redemption lay in the Apostle’s mind as he teaches us in Rom viii.29, 30 ” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 320).

3. The Order Set Forth by the Sublapsarians.

This arrangement, sustained by a group who are also styled moderate Calvinists, differs but slightly from the order

proposed by the Infralapsarians. Technically, the Infralapsarians place election after the decree to provide salvation, though Dr. Hodge, quoted above, does not recognize this feature when listing the order of decrees as proposed by the Infralapsarians. The Sublapsarians are identified by the placing of the decree to elect to follow the decree to permit the fall. In general, the sublapsarian order is a refutation of the supralapsarian order. Dr. Hodge’s theological position classes him more reasonably with this school. The distinction between the infralapsarian and the sublapsarian is that the infralapsarian school places the decree to provide salvation before the decree to elect, while the sublapsarian places the decree to elect before the decree to provide salvation. The infralapsarian order, which places the decree to provide salvation before the decree to elect, allows possibly for the contention that Christ wrought an unlimited redemption, whereas the sublapsarian order, which places the decree to elect before the decree to provide salvation, favors the theory of a limited redemption. The order prescribed by the Sublapsarians is:

(1) Decree to create all men.

(2) Decree to permit the fall.

(3) Decree to elect those who do believe and to leave in just condemnation those who do not believe.

(4) Decree to provide salvation for men.

(5) Decree to apply salvation to those who believe.

4. The Order Set Forth by the Arminians.

Here the order is identical with that of the infralapsarian view, with one exception, namely, the Arminian view of election, which step is made to follow the decree to provide salvation. Election is by the Arminians made to depend on foreseen human virtue, faith, and obedience, whereas the infralapsarian view of election, invests it with the character of sovereign divine choice apart from any foreseen human merit whatsoever.

Refuting the Arminian idea of election, Dr. Shedd exposes the position of Richard Watson—the chief of Arminian theologians—as follows: “Respecting election, Watson (Institutes, II. 338) remarks as follows: ‘To be elected is, to be separated from the world (“I have chosen you out of the world”), and to be sanctified by the Spirit (“elect unto obedience”). It follows, then, that election is not only an act of God in time, but also that it is subsequent to the administration of the means of salvation. Actual election cannot be eternal, for from eternity the elect were not actually chosen out of the world, and could not be actually sanctified unto obedience.’ This explanation makes election to be sanctification itself, instead of its cause. ‘To be elected, is to be separated from the world, and to be sanctified.’ The term ‘separate’ is used here by Watson not as St. Paul uses it to denote election, when he says that God ‘separated him from his mother’s womb’ (Gal 1:15); but in the sense of sanctification, as St. Paul employs it in 2 Cor 6:17, ‘Be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing.’ By this interpretation, election is made to be the same thing as sanctification, instead of being an act of God that produces it; as is taught in Eph 1:4, ‘He hath chosen us that we should be holy,’ and in 1 Pet 1:2, ‘Elect unto obedience”’ (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I. p. 449).

Conclusion.

It will be observed from the foregoing that the differences represented in these various orders of decrees, though they seem highly speculative to some, do represent vital doctrine at its very foundation. The three schools of Calvinists contend alike that divine election is the sovereign choice of God which expresses His grace apart from every form of human works foreseen or actual, and that the Arminian school, by making election to be no more than foreknowledge as to human merit, assert that, in the end, man elects himself by his faith and obedience. The Calvinistic schools are the result of a faithful induction of the Word of God bearing on the elective decrees, whereas the Arminian school is an intrusion of human reason.

Order of Elective Decrees

II. The Order of Elective Decrees

Of all the decrees of God, reaching out as they do to infinity, five are related directly to the purpose of God in election as it pertains to those who comprise the Church, the Body of Christ. The problem which presents itself to the mind of thoughtful and devout men is as to the order which these five decrees maintain in the mind of God. The arrangement, being logical rather than chronological, is somewhat speculative and yet great issues are involved. By the term logical is meant that, though the entire program is as one thought in the mind of God, the principle of cause and effect is evidently involved. That is, one issue may prepare the way and thus become the cause of another. These specific decrees are here named, but without regard at this time as to the right order which they sustain.

(1) The decree to elect some to salvation and leave others to their just condemnation.

(2) The decree to create all men.

(3) The decree to permit the fall.

(4) The decree to provide salvation for men.

(5) The decree to apply salvation to men.

Four schools of interpretation are recognized, each contending for a specific order in the arrangement of these elective decrees. These schools are: the supralapsarian, the infralapsarian, the sublapsarian, and the Arminian; the first three being classed as Calvinistic. Though the defense of these varying orders concerns primarily the one subject—the election of some to be saved and the leaving of others to a just condemnation, the titles by which three of these schools are identified relates them to the fall of man. The word lapsarian refers to one who believes in the doctrine that man is a fallen being. Of this particular line of investigation, Dr. Charles Hodge writes this qualifying word: “It is to be borne in mind that the object of these speculations is not to pry into the operation of the divine mind, but simply to ascertain and exhibit the relation in which the several truths revealed in Scripture concerning the plan of redemption bear to each other” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 321). A more detailed consideration of each of the claims advanced by each of these schools is here presented:

1. The Order Set Forth by the Supralapsarians.

This group is sometimes styled the High Calvinists or the Ultra Calvinists. The primary issue in the order proposed by this school of interpreters is that the decree to elect some and to reprobate all others stands first in the order of decrees and by this disposal of God He is declared to have elected men to their destiny before they sin and without a cause, except it be by the sovereign will of God. It is true that God, as First Cause, effected man’s existence knowing who would be reprobate; but this responsibility, like that of the presence of sin in the world, is never reckoned from the creature back upon God. Earlier in this immediate discussion, it was concluded that divine election precedes the determination to provide a Savior. The present issue is as to the order which obtains between the decree to elect and the decree to permit the fall.

The order as defended by the Supralapsarians is:

(1) Decree to elect some to be saved and to reprobate all others.

(2) Decree to create men both elect and non-elect.

(3) Decree to permit the fall.

(4) Decree to provide salvation for the elect.

(5) Decree to apply salvation to the election.

On this view as held by the Supralapsarians, Dr. William G. T. Shedd remarks: “The supralapsarian theory places, in the order of decrees, the decree of election and preterition before the fall, instead of after it. It supposes that God begins by decreeing that a certain number of men shall be elected, and reprobated. This decree is prior even to that of creation, in the logical order…. The objections to this view are the following: (a) The decree of election and preterition has reference to a non-entity. Man is contemplated as creatable, not as created. Consequently, the decree of election and preterition has no real object…. Man is only ideally existent, an abstract conception; and therefore any divine determination concerning him, is a determination concerning non-entity. But God’s decrees of election and reprobation suppose some actually created beings, from which to select and reject. ‘On whom he will, he hath mercy; and whom he will, he hardeneth,’ Rom 9:18. The first decree, in the order of nature, must therefore be a decree to create. God must bring man into being, before he can decide what man shall do or experience. It is no reply to say, that man is created in the Divine idea, though not in reality, when the decree of predestination is made. It is equally true that he is fallen, in the Divine idea, when this decree is made. And the question is, What is the logical order, in the divine idea, of the creation and the fall? (b) The Scriptures represent the elect and nonelect, respectively, as taken out of an existing aggregate of beings. John 15:19, ‘I have chosen you out of the world.’ (c) The elect are chosen to justification and sanctification. Eph 1:4–6; 1 Pet 1:2. They must therefore have been already fallen, and consequently created. God justifies ‘the ungodly,’ Rom 4:5; and sanctifies the unholy. (d) The supralapsarian reprobation is a Divine act that cannot presuppose sin, because it does not presuppose existence. But the Scriptures represent the non-elect as sinful creatures. In Jude 4, the men who were ‘of old ordained to this condemnation’ are ‘ungodly men, turning the grace of God into lasciviousness.’ Accordingly, the Westminster Confession (III, 7) affirms that God passes by the non-elect, and ‘ordains them to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.’ The supralapsarian quotes Rom 9:11, in proof of his assertion that election and preterition are prior to the creation of man. ‘The children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil,’ Jacob was chosen and Esau was left. This is an erroneous interpretation. Birth is not synonymous with creation. Parents are not the creators of their children. Man exists before he is born into the world. He exists in the womb; and he existed in Adam” (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I, pp. 442, 443).

2. The Order Set Forth by Infralapsarians.

According to this school—properly called moderate Calvinists—the distinctive issue is that the decree to elect some and to leave others in retribution follows the fall, the order they defend, therefore, being:

(1) Decree to create all men.

(2) Decree to permit the fall.

(3) Decree to provide salvation for men.

(4) Decree to elect those who do believe and to leave in just condemnation all who do not believe.

 (5) Decree to apply salvation to those who believe.

Dr. Charles Hodge is one, among several, who makes no distinction between the infralapsarian and sublapsarian views by not mentioning the latter. What he writes, therefore, combines these to some extent. Of the Infralapsarians he says: “That this view is self-consistent and harmonious. As all the decrees of God are one comprehensive purpose, no view of the relation of the details embraced in that purpose which does not admit of their being reduced to unity can be admitted. In every great mechanism, whatever the number or complexity of its parts, there must be unity of design. Every part bears a given relation to every other part, and the perception of that relation is necessary to a proper understanding of the whole. Again, as the decrees of God are eternal and immutable, no view of his plan of operation which supposes Him to purpose first one thing and then another can be consistent with their nature. And as God is absolutely sovereign and independent, all his purposes must be determined from within or according to the counsel of his own will. They cannot be supposed to be contingent or suspended on the action of his creatures, or upon anything out of Himself. The infralapsarian scheme, as held by most Augustinians, fulfils all these conditions. All the particulars form one comprehensive whole. All follow in an order which supposes no change of purpose; and all depend on the infinitely wise, holy, and righteous will of God. The final end is the glory of God. For that end He creates the world, allows the fall; from among fallen men He elects some to everlasting life, and leaves the rest to the just recompense of their sins. Whom He elects He calls, justifies, and glorifies. This is the golden chain the links of which cannot be separated or transposed. This is the form in which the scheme of redemption lay in the Apostle’s mind as he teaches us in Rom viii.29, 30 ” (Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 320).

3. The Order Set Forth by the Sublapsarians.

This arrangement, sustained by a group who are also styled moderate Calvinists, differs but slightly from the order

proposed by the Infralapsarians. Technically, the Infralapsarians place election after the decree to provide salvation, though Dr. Hodge, quoted above, does not recognize this feature when listing the order of decrees as proposed by the Infralapsarians. The Sublapsarians are identified by the placing of the decree to elect to follow the decree to permit the fall. In general, the sublapsarian order is a refutation of the supralapsarian order. Dr. Hodge’s theological position classes him more reasonably with this school. The distinction between the infralapsarian and the sublapsarian is that the infralapsarian school places the decree to provide salvation before the decree to elect, while the sublapsarian places the decree to elect before the decree to provide salvation. The infralapsarian order, which places the decree to provide salvation before the decree to elect, allows possibly for the contention that Christ wrought an unlimited redemption, whereas the sublapsarian order, which places the decree to elect before the decree to provide salvation, favors the theory of a limited redemption. The order prescribed by the Sublapsarians is:

(1) Decree to create all men.

(2) Decree to permit the fall.

(3) Decree to elect those who do believe and to leave in just condemnation those who do not believe.

(4) Decree to provide salvation for men.

(5) Decree to apply salvation to those who believe.

4. The Order Set Forth by the Arminians.

Here the order is identical with that of the infralapsarian view, with one exception, namely, the Arminian view of election, which step is made to follow the decree to provide salvation. Election is by the Arminians made to depend on foreseen human virtue, faith, and obedience, whereas the infralapsarian view of election, invests it with the character of sovereign divine choice apart from any foreseen human merit whatsoever.

Refuting the Arminian idea of election, Dr. Shedd exposes the position of Richard Watson—the chief of Arminian theologians—as follows: “Respecting election, Watson (Institutes, II. 338) remarks as follows: ‘To be elected is, to be separated from the world (“I have chosen you out of the world”), and to be sanctified by the Spirit (“elect unto obedience”). It follows, then, that election is not only an act of God in time, but also that it is subsequent to the administration of the means of salvation. Actual election cannot be eternal, for from eternity the elect were not actually chosen out of the world, and could not be actually sanctified unto obedience.’ This explanation makes election to be sanctification itself, instead of its cause. ‘To be elected, is to be separated from the world, and to be sanctified.’ The term ‘separate’ is used here by Watson not as St. Paul uses it to denote election, when he says that God ‘separated him from his mother’s womb’ (Gal 1:15); but in the sense of sanctification, as St. Paul employs it in 2 Cor 6:17, ‘Be ye separate, and touch not the unclean thing.’ By this interpretation, election is made to be the same thing as sanctification, instead of being an act of God that produces it; as is taught in Eph 1:4, ‘He hath chosen us that we should be holy,’ and in 1 Pet 1:2, ‘Elect unto obedience”’ (Dogmatic Theology, Vol. I. p. 449).

Conclusion.

It will be observed from the foregoing that the differences represented in these various orders of decrees, though they seem highly speculative to some, do represent vital doctrine at its very foundation. The three schools of Calvinists contend alike that divine election is the sovereign choice of God which expresses His grace apart from every form of human works foreseen or actual, and that the Arminian school, by making election to be no more than foreknowledge as to human merit, assert that, in the end, man elects himself by his faith and obedience. The Calvinistic schools are the result of a faithful induction of the Word of God bearing on the elective decrees, whereas the Arminian school is an intrusion of human reason.

Order of Events (from the ascension to heaven)

Order of Events (from the ascension to heaven) RD/Matt/142b-143b

The order of events that we see from this Psalm that will take place from the time of the ascension of Jesus to heaven, which is 40 days after the crucifixion, to the establishment of His kingdom, the future 1000-year messianic rule, we see summed up in several points. 

1. Ascension of Messiah to Heaven.

2. Seated at the right hand of God, “on My Father’s throne,”

3. Asks for the Kingdom,

4. Is granted the Kingdom,

5. Messiah returns to the earth and defeats the kings of the earth, ;

6. YHWH Extends the dominion of the Messianic King from Zion, ; ; ; ; ;

7. The Messianic Ruler will establish His righteous rule in the midst of His enemies, ; ;

8. The Messianic Ruler will judge the surviving Gentiles; ;

9. The Messianic Ruler will return with an army of willing volunteers to conquer His enemies,

10. The Messianic Ruler is identified as the begotten, ; ;

11. The Messianic Ruler is also designated a priest, after the Order of Melchizedek,

Then:

His kingdom is established in fulfillment of , "Then the sovereignty, the dominion and the greatness of {all} the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be given to the people of the saints …" That includes both Old Testament believers who are resurrected and return with the Lord, as well as church age believers who are resurrected at the end of the church age and spent the Tribulation period in heaven and then returned with Him, as well as those Tribulation believers whom were martyred during the Tribulation and will return in resurrection bodies with the Messiah. "… His kingdom {will be} an everlasting kingdom, and all the dominions will serve and obey Him", as were told and Philippians chapter 2, "and every knee shall bow, in heaven and on the earth".

Overcomers

Overcomers                                    RD/ Rev. 086b

Overcomers

1)      The victorious believer receives rewards, privileges and blessings at the judgment seat of Christ, according to 1 Corinthians 3:12-15.

2)      Victorious believers have different levels of privilege and authority in the kingdom. Some will rule over different amounts, different areas in the kingdom on the earth.

3)      Victorious believers will rule and reign with Christ as kings and priests.

Defeated believers

1)      Defeated believers don’t put doctrine first, they fail to count the cost, they fail to set priorities, they fail to apply the Word, they don’t grow spiritually. As a result there is loss at the judgment seat of Christ.

2)      Often defeated believers are wonderful people, successful in the things of temporal existence and the details of life, but they let the details of life and the obligations of family and bobbies and work crowd out the priority of learning and applying the Word of God.

3)      Defeated believers become distracted by the details of life. They seek happiness in temporal reality and their focus is on earthly things and not on heavenly things.

4)      There is a temporal loss of blessing and happiness as a result because as believers who are carnal, who are not walking by means of the Spirit, they can only have temporal happiness based on the achievement of whatever details of life they think will make them happy. Sooner or later those will disappear.

5)      There is shame for them at the judgment seat of Christ because they realize what they have squandered. They realize that the only thing that they could take with them into eternity is what they acquired spiritually, and so there is temporary shame at the judgment seat of Christ.

6)      There is a loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ, they become disinherited but they don’t lose their salvation.

7)      They will enter but not inherit the kingdom. Inheriting the kingdom is different from entering the kingdom.

8)      Their rewards will be destroyed in the lake of fire, as per Revelation 21:8 which says, “Their part will be in the lake of fire.” The word for “part” is the Greek word MEROS [meroj] which indicates an inheritance portion within a will or testament. They sacrifice their inheritance because of their focus on temporal things and it gets burned up in the lake of fire.

Pagan Thought

Teaching them how to identify the elements of pagan thought in their own mentality. RD/Gen/100b -101b

Introductory principles

1)      In 2504 BC was the flood.

2)      The next major event comes between the flood and Abram and we don’t know when it occurred: the tower of Babel. Bible references suggest that it occurred somewhere between 2300 and 2200 BC.

3)      Abraham is born about 2166 BC. Why worry about these dates? There is a progression and a deterioration that takes place during this time. As opposed to evolution society isn’t gradually improving. What we see is a degradation that occurs in society after the flood, a deterioration. This occurs dramatically in these two to three hundred years between the flood and the tower of Babel.

4)      During the approximately two to three hundred years between the flood and Babel the human race multiplied incredibly to at least several million people. There would have been few deaths and if they had large numbers of children then they could easily have reached a population of several million. Some of them spread out throughout the Middle East but they really didn’t scatter around the earth as God had commanded. They began to establish major urban areas and seemed to localize around Babel. That is when there was the episode of their rebellion, building the tower of Babel over against God’s command to scatter.

5)      Spiritually that time period began with eight people who were all believers and who all understood the existence of God, the righteousness and justice of God, and the grace of God. They understood that He was a personal God, an infinite God.

6)      In three generations Nimrod is born, the grandson of Noah, and there was seen the start of the perversion of religion into nature religions and the worship of the forces of nature, and especially fertility and sexuality. This begins in that period between the flood and the tower of Babel.

7)      This degeneration is described for us in Romans chapter one. Romans 1:18, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.” So what was going on in that period was that men were rejecting reality as God defined it. They are worshipping other gods and deifying nature, and they are suppressing the truth. They no longer want to look at the world as God said it is but are starting to twist and distort it and come up with alternate views and explanations of reality. Verse 19, “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath showed it unto them. For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.” Now this is not stating the validity of the argument known as intelligent design. Those are philosophical arguments and they can be taken apart by any good logician at times and sometimes they are not stated very well. But what this is saying is that everything in creation is of such a nature and God has structured everything so that there is something in the human soul that receives a non-verbal testimony from the stars, the sun, the moon, and everything is broadcasting to man created in the image and likeness of God, that God exists. It is a non-verbal revelation. Everyone knows it so that in the last phrase of verse 20, “they are without excuse.” No one can say they didn’t know. Verse 21, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful [this is the post-flood civilization]; but became vain in their imaginations [they structured creation myths that were foreign to reality], and their foolish heart was darkened.” Verse 22, “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” Some of those today who promote the evolution theories have multiple Ph Ds, tremendous IQs. Why are they fools? They said there is no God. Once you reject God then everything else starts to fall apart. Verse 23, “And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.” This is the first stage in the development of human viewpoint religion after the flood. They began to worship nature, animals, and the forces of nature. Therefore, as a result of that comes the first cycle of divine judgment, v. 24: “Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.” Their immorality, the lust in their hearts, dishonoring their bodies among themselves, is all judgment on them because they rejected God. God begins to take the restraint off a society or group of people the more negative they become and it gets worse and worse sand worse. Verse 25, “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.” Then in verse 26, the second cycle of degeneracy: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature [lesbianism]: and likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is shameful, and receiving in themselves that penalty of their error which was due.” We live in a society that has lost the impact of the shame, the stigma that should be there. That shows how even our souls become calloused to the sin that is around us. Verse 28, “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful.” A perfect description of the post-modern society and a perfect description of what was going on in the Canaanite culture in the ancient world. We see it really played out in the book of Judges.

To understand what is happening we have to go back to a breakdown of the divine institutions.

A divine institution is a social structure that God has established for the safety, security, perpetuation and stability of the human race.

The first divine institution is individual responsibility. Man is accountable to God, but what happens when man rejects God to whom do they then become accountable? They become accountable to whoever has the power to enforce whatever rules and laws there might be. That is called tyranny. So once there is a breakdown in individual responsibility man becomes subordinate to strong men, tyrants, despots, and that is really what there was after the flood when some of the most tyrannical leaders in human history developed in terms of the divine kings of Egypt and the kings of the Mesopotamian empires. These were men who were much more tyrannical and despotic than any of the despots of our era.

The second divine institution is marriage. The husband is the leader in the home. When that is perverted the home breaks down. The home is the institution in which values are perpetuated to the next generation. They are taught, they are handed down; parents discipline a child.

The third divine institution is the family where the parents are the authority.

These three divine institutions were all established before the fall, and they are what breaks down when we get into Sodom. There is no individual responsibility to God, there is no accountability to anybody, so we can do whatever we want to with our own bodies and with our culture. So marriage then becomes perverted resulting into all sorts of sexual sin and perversion. Then, third, the family breaks down once the marriage breaks down and as a result of this the whole society just becomes fragmented.

The fourth divine institution is governing judicial authority. God established with the Noahic covenant when He delegated the authority to take human life when someone has committed murder. That is such a tremendous responsibility that all other legal action flows from that. When man has the responsibility to take the life of another human being because they have committed murder then man has the right to execute justice and judgment in all lesser areas. So we have the delegation of judicial authority and that becomes the basis for human government.

The fifth divine institution comes out of the tower of Babel, which is when God divides the languages, divides man into various tribal groups, and it is that distinction that becomes nations. That is important for the perpetuation of the human race, and the ultimate authority there is back to God because God is the one who governs history. That is what we see in the breakdown in Sodom and Gomorrah: God is going to intervene because all the divine institutions have broken down and He is going to take them out as a national entity.

8)      As part of the religious degeneration we see that social and sexual degeneration develops. The biblical viewpoint is that these things always go together, and when man rejects God’s authority he also rejects God’s established institutions. Not only does man pervert himself but he perverts God’s intention for society and the institutions for society.

(9)    As a result of this degeneracy there is developed either anarchy or tyranny. Why? Because what happens is that there is a rejection of God as ultimate authority, and in the resulting vacuum, something has to move, something has to become the ultimate authority and it is always some element of creation or society or government. Therefore you end up with some kind of polar opposite, either tyranny or anarchy. If it is anarchy everything is in chaos and someone has to come in and bring order, so once again that goes right back to tyranny and some sort of bondage or tyrannical despotism that is established. This is exactly what we see in the earliest civilizations.

(10)  As biblical truth impacts a culture it transforms that society with biblical norms and standards, establishment truth, and the result is stability, order, peace, prosperity, and cultural advance. The classic example of this is what happened during the Reformation. If we look at where western Europe was and where the Roman Catholic church had taken it in the late Middle Ages there were a number of different problems with society. People were basically down-trodden, there was no freedom, there was not a lot of economic growth. Things were starting to break out in the 1400s but that was because of the same factors that influenced and provided for the Reformation. There was a pre-Reformation, as it were, as a result of Wycliffe in London and his followers who were translating the Bible into the common language of the people. They were persecuted. There were the Hussites in Bohemia teaching the truth and were persecuted as well by the Roman Catholic church. But as the Reformation began to have its impact there was an environment established in western Europe for real freedom. If we were to identify the nations where we have experienced the greatest levels of freedom that would be North America, Britain, the English-speaking countries. Then in the next level of freedom we would identify other Reformation impacted nations such as Germany, Scandinavian countries, Switzerland. Then the next tier is the Roman Catholic countries like Spain, France, Italy, eastern Europe which never experienced the kind of economic freedom and prosperity or individual freedom that there was in either the Germanic countries, northern Europe that was impacted by Protestant theology or English-speaking. Then we look at the rest of the world which never developed concepts of freedom and never had the kind of economic prosperity across the board, available to every individual citizen, that there was at the other end of the spectrum, as for example, the United States of America and English-speaking countries. What makes the difference is ultimately theology. It is one of the most practical illustrations that theology matters when it permeates the culture. What came out of the Reformation was that there were leaders who were taking the Word of God and using it to think through all the different areas of life. That laid the foundation for modern civilization. That foundation was laid in the 16th century, 17th century, and on into the 18th century. It wasn’t until the shift from the 18th century to the 19th century where pagan enlightenment ideas began to permeate the university structure of western civilization there were seen the start of the foreshadowings of our collapse. So the principle is that as biblical truth impacts the culture it transforms that society with biblical norms and standards and establishment truth, and the result is going to be stability, order, peace, and prosperity.

(11)  On the other hand, you have the opposite. As biblical truth is rejected and diluted biblical norms become demonized. The result is social instability, disorder, chaos, a loss of prosperity, and cultural decline.

(12)  We have to recognize that there are biblical norms of divine establishment that God built into creation. These are established for everyone, both believer and unbeliever. The institution of marriage breaks down because of, among other things, sexual perversion. Sexual perversion is an outgrowth of self-absorption, a key element in arrogance. So the more arrogant a culture becomes, the more it is divorced from God, the more self-absorbed they are, the more they are interested in their own sexual pleasure. With this hyper-attention to their own sexuality there is a breakdown in marriage.

(13)  As society utilizes and applies establishment principles it is going to stabilize, strengthen, and prosper.

(14)  But when a society rejects these norms it is going to fragment, destabilize, and lose prosperity. It all starts falling apart.

(15)  Sodom is a picture of what happens at the end of the cycle. Some principles from the chapter:

a)              People are viewed in terms of how they can be used for the benefit and pleasure of others. As soon as these messengers go into Sodom the residents of Sodom want to sexually abuse them all night long. In this pagan culture people are viewed only in terms of how they can be used for benefit and personal pleasure of others. It is all about me!

b)              Women and men are no longer viewed as individuals in the image of God, they are simply sex objects, objects of pleasure.

c)              As paganism dominates a culture there is an increasing connection between sex and violence.

d)              Sexual violence and abuse of women and men increases and becomes normative in a culture.

e)              There is a rise of criminality with little concern for the victim.

f)               Homosexuality and bi-sexuality, as well as sexual gratification outside of marriage are accepted and approved. These become normative in the culture.

g)              This emphasis on personal gratification is the eventual result of an increase in self-absorption and self-gratification that at its roots destroys the possibility of a healthy society.

h)              We have to recognize that sex was not only designed for pleasure but for procreation. When we talk about procreation we are talking about the future, so it looks to the future of the race and the future of society. Homosexuality ignores the future and is willing to sacrifice the future for the pleasures of the present.

(16)  Sodom pictures the end of the cycle. This is the most perverse culture that we have seen in human history and it was necessary for God to judge it and destroy it. The problems in Sodom and the cities of the plain are a microcosm of what is going on in the broader Canaanite culture as a whole and where that it headed.

(17)  Which is why God destroys Sodom, not only as a warning to Israel but as a warning to all subsequent civilizations that if they allow themselves to deteriorate and follow this pattern then they are going to destroy themselves in the same way.

(18)  Sodom is a direct refutation of the myth that sexual orientation and what goes on in the privacy of the bedroom is a neutral issue as far as society is concerned. That is the lie that we are told. For example, why do we have laws that make adultery illegal? Why do we have laws that make homosexuality illegal? It is because there was an understanding that if there was a permissiveness towards these acts then it was self-destructive for the culture, that they didn’t just stay in the bedroom, that there was a connection between sexual activity and sexual orientation and spirituality and the integrity of the nation. Once the dyke is allowed to collapse in one area it affects all the other areas. What Genesis 19 and the book  of Judges demonstrates is that it does affect us. It is both a cause and an effect.

(19)  Divine viewpoint teaches that homosexuality is a direct attack on the first three divine institutions: on individual responsibility, on marriage, and on family. And it results in an assault on the fourth and fifth divine institutions.

(20)  There are parallels between this episode in Sodom and the episode in Judges chapter nineteen.

Paganism

The Characteristics of Paganism RD/Gen/102

1)      Sexual degradation and perversion becomes commonplace and socially acceptable in a pagan culture. The more a culture is divorced from the absolutes of the Scripture the more sexual deviancy becomes “normal” and accepted. The more it becomes normal and accepted, the more accustomed, even believers become. They may not be comfortable with it but they no longer experience the same level of shame and embarrassment when certain things are talked about than when they first came up. We hear about certain things on TV and in the news and we become desensitized to the shame of these acts and actions that are taking place in our culture. As a result of this there is an increase in violence.

2)      Women are no longer protected and valued.

3)      There is a total breakdown as a result of that over all distinctions. It is no coincidence that at the same time that we have the rise of radical feminism, which as as its core the idea there is total and complete interchangeability between men and women and the workplace and the rise of homosexuality among men and women, which says the same thing sexually, that men and women are completely interchangeable as sexual partners. The idea is: It doesn’t matter whether my sexual partner is a man or a woman just as long as I have my gratification. So there is a breakdown of role distinctions and there is evidence in women assuming male authority positions and a failure of male leadership in the culture. So women want to assume male authority positions such as a pastor, or they take male positions in terms of bi-sexuality. All of this reflects a breakdown in the culture because we no longer understand the role of men and women as image bearers as God created them. So women become sex objects and men become tyrannical and abusers, and it leads to a complete breakdown of marriage and of the family, and eventually society.  

Parallelism

Synonymous Parallelism

The thought expressed in the first part of the verse is repeated in the second part, in different but equivalent terms (; ; , ; , ; ).

Synthetic Parallelism

The idea expressed in the first line of a verse is expanded and completed in the following line(s) (; , ; ; ).

Antithetic Parallelism

The idea expressed in the first line of a verse is contrasted to that in the second line., “In the morning it flourishes and grows up; In the evening it is cut down and withers.”

Emblematic Parallelism

The idea expressed in one line of a verse is a complete picture or emblem which illustrates the idea expressed in the other.

, “As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him.”

Parallels between 9th Century Israel and Our Own

Parallels between 9th Century Israel and our own.

   1. Fools live in a fantasy world and make policy based on fallacy. Scripture says that the fool has said in his heart there is no God, and throughout much of Scripture there is the contrast between wisdom and foolishness; the life of the wise and the life of the fool. Wisdom in Scripture is skilful living, how a creature lives skilfully before God so that he creates in his life that which has real beauty and glorifies the creator. In contrast to that there is the fool. The fool is the person who builds his life on completely false assumptions. Jesus talks about the man who builds his house on shifting sand. This is the same idea that a person builds his life, his thinking, his values and whole approach to life on completely fallacious assumptions. The verse that says the fool says there is no God is also saying something more profound, and that is that the person who operates his life as if there is no God is a fool. When people operate on a non-biblical foundation and are not operating on divine viewpoint but human viewpoint, then they are constructing a fantasy view of reality. They are not dealing with life as God has made it and it is but they are going top deal with creation on the basis of their own ideas. This is what is brought out in Romans chapter one which talks about man in negative volition rejecting God, and so he worships the creation rather than the creator. Professing himself to be wise he becomes a fool. There is a lot of technical achievement but the bottom line is that God is rejected and so even though men may make a lot of good decisions and accomplish things and do them well, but both the believer and the unbeliever are living in God’s world and can only create their own fantasies for so long until they bump their head on the ceiling of reality. When there is a culture of people who have rejected God they are going to put something in His place. The absence of God always creates a vacuum and a vacuum sucks in whatever is around that appeals to the desires of the unbeliever. Unbelievers always have to have some sort of origin story; everybody has to know where they came from. Who am I? What am I? Is there a God? These are basic questions people ask as they begin to grow up. Those who deny that there is a God and reject the biblical God and the biblical story of creation have to have a substitute. They can’t just lives as if there is no answer to the question and so they have to generate some kind of answer. That is foundational to all thought, unless one is radically and irrationally inconsistent—which a lot pf people are, they just don’t want to think things through and try to connect the dots. This is typical of any kind of human viewpoint.

A lot of people just functionally reject God. They have a smorgasbord view of religion. This is born out more and more by various surveys that are made today where people just want to have a cafeteria style religion where they go through and pick this out of Buddhism, this out of Hinduism, and this out of Islam, and this out of secular humanism, and this out of Christianity and blend it and mix it up and come up with their own little religious system. They just don’t think that these things need to be thought out an integrated with one another. They live in a fantasy world, but the trouble with living in a fantasy world is that reality always seems to rear its ugly head at some point when something happens. This is what happened with Hiel when he generated in the northern kingdom of Israel a fantasy view related to the existence of Yahweh. It started with the revisionism that was promoted by the government. As Hiel begins to rebuild Jericho he is willing to completely reject the prophesy that Joshua had made. Joshua 6:26 NASB “Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, ‘Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho; with {the loss of} his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and with {the loss of} his youngest son he shall set up its gates’.”  That is literally and precisely fulfilled in the episode with Hiel. But it is not just a matter of prophesy being stated and fulfilled as mush as it tells us about the foolishness and the fantasy view of reality that characterises not only Hiel but the whole culture in the northern kingdom. They have rejected the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as a real entity who interacts with creation and holds mankind accountable for the decisions they make, and that as the creator He has established within the framework of creation certain standards, certain realities, that when we violate these built-in social laws, economic laws, physical laws, that the result is going to be catastrophic. Within this open universe in which we live God intervenes, and when we get to a point of negative volition beyond a certain point God intervenes and brings about judgment and certain consequences. What we see with this one individual, and the reason he is brought into this, is that it gives us a picture of this whole culture in the northern kingdom that Elijah has to deal with and that he will be confronting in the next few chapters. They don’t believe that Yahweh is really there; they don’t believe that Yahweh really intervenes in life, and they don’t believe that Yahweh is really relevant to day-to-day decisions. That is the essence of being a fool. What has happened in numerous cultures down through the centuries is that when God is removed and we start operating on a false foundation of thought sooner or later the decisions begin to accumulate and things begin to fall apart. We see this in our culture today.

This affects not only economics but it also affects the ethics. All law ultimately is going to be built on some sort of ethical foundation and if you have a system that is based on relativism, upon a god that is just a super-sized human who is always fighting, violent, at war with other gods and involved in all sorts of promiscuous sexual activity, then this is going to be imitated in the culture. This is exactly what we have seen in the northern kingdom.

   2. Life is not as important The same thing characterised the thinking of the Jews and the religious Jewish leaders in Israel at the time of Christ. They are coming at it from the opposite side, not from an atheistic side per se but from a religious, legalistic side. But in the episode recorded in the Gospels about the Gadarene demoniac, when He cast the demons out and into the pigs (unclean animals according to the Mosaic Law) in a Gentile area, the people were more concerned about what happened to the pigs than the individual who had just been delivered. This also happens in a pagan culture and we have the same kinds of things happening today—abortion (which is not murder but that does not mean it is the right approach to solving unwanted pregnancies), infanticide, and then that bleeds over into euthanasia. This develops a very utilitarian view of life that a person’s value is not only the fact that they are created in the image and likeness of God, and therefore life itself has value and should be protected, but life only has value in terms of how somebody can contribute to society and if they become more of a hindrance than a help then they are no longer wanted. We see this reflected in Hiel’s attitude that he has by removing God from the scene as not being really involved in day-to-day things, and maybe He didn’t really exist, but for him life wasn’t important and he has a very callous view towards the loss of life of his two sons.

   3. Success and the worship of material prosperity becomes foremost with the people. That is an outgrowth in the whole fertility religion cult system. Baal and the Asherah were the gods and goddesses who would provide agricultural fertility and prosperity so that if one was to properly placate or propitiate the gods through various sacrifices, including the sacrifice of infants, then this would motivate the gods to provide success and prosperity. This is reflected in Hiel’s attitude because he wants to rebuild the city, he wants it to be a city of commerce, a city where he could make himself wealthy at the expense of his two sons. Nothing was more important to him than that material success and prosperity. We see the same thing in America today.      

   4.  The results of religious decisions ultimately impact policy decisions. These religious decisions shift first to the golden calf and Baalism were decisions that impacted the policy of Ahab and Jezebel, and this in turn brought about judgment from God on the nation in terms of the various stages of the divine institutions. This is why He is bringing drought on the nation and economic collapse. It in the midst of that economic collapse that we see Elijah learning his lessons that related to his spiritual advance. We see that the decisions that are made on the basis of fantasy then become institutionalised in terms of various policies. For example, today we have an origin theory that has been developed from Darwin on, on the theory of evolution, that is considered to be fact. It is functional reality for the vast majority of Americans. Evolutionary theory is the framework for the modern environmentalist movement which really has more affinity with paganism than anything else and an inherent hostility to human beings.

   5. Those who stand up for absolutes and objective truth will be demonised, marginalised and criminalised. They are made to be the enemy, and there is more open hostility today that is vocalised in the press, vocalised by various individuals in society, and Christianity is blamed for so many things. The more conservative and biblical one is the more he is demonised. Dispensationalists become demonised by a certain segment of evangelicals because they see our support for Israel to be one of the real stumbling blocks to America having peaceful relations with Muslim countries, etc.

So there was the persecution of opponents. Jezebel had hundreds of believers killed because of their refusal to bow the knee to Baal. This is the culture and the situation into which Elijah is going to come. 1 Kings 17:1 NASB “Now Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the settlers of Gilead, said to Ahab, ‘As the LORD, the God of Israel lives, before whom I stand, surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word’.” This is the first time we hear about Elijah. Nobody has ever heard of him before, he hasn’t been mentioned previously in the Scriptures; he just suddenly and dramatically appears before the king of the northern kingdom who is a somewhat powerful king. He fits his name [My God is Yahweh] because he is going to demonstrate the reality of Yahweh over against the fantasies of Baalism which is simply being used by Ahab and Jezebel to have power and control over the people. There is nothing in the text that says God told Elijah to do this but we can extrapolate from what happens from this point on that he doesn’t make a move anywhere in the narrative apart from God telling him what to do. See verses 2, 8, 18:1, etc. The phrase “As the LORD, the God of Israel lives” is a very important phrase because he is emphasising the fact that the God of Israel is a living God as opposed to the idols of Baal and Asherah that are made of wood or stone or metal. The God of Israel is a living God and both a personal God and an infinite God and He is involved in the affairs of men. So he is not simply saying something that is a stock phrase, something that would give a little more impetus to what he is saying; he is making a strong statement about the fact that he represents the living, true God of Israel and that this God intervenes in the affairs of men. Ahab has been violating God’s Word and because of that God is going to initiate judgment against the northern kingdom.

God is a living God and He is a personal God; we can know Him and we can have a relationship with Him. That relationship comes only through faith in Jesus Christ. After we trust Christ as saviour and we are saved the next step is for us to learn the Word so that we can know God. Jesus told Philip in a very important dialogue in John 14 that if he had seen Him he had seen the Father: “Have I been so long with you, and {yet} you have not come to know Me, Philip?” In other words, you are saved but you don’t know me. Knowledge of Jesus, knowledge of God, is the result of years of Bible study, growth, prayer and developing that relationship with God. Paul said this is part of our goal as believers, Philippians 3:10 NASB “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection…” We come to know God only through the process of studying His Word. Resurrection is through the power of the Holy Spirit, it is the Holy Spirit who is the empowerment for the Christian life. The Christian life is a supernatural way of life and we can only live it on the basis of the Word of God and the Spirit of God—walking by the Spirit, the filling of the Spirit, then we can experience the power that raised Jesus from the dead in our own spiritual lives. This principle is also true in the Old Testament. Daniel 11:32 NASB “…but the people who know their God will display strength and take action.” Those who don’t know God are weak and the culture falls apart. 2 Chronicles 16:9 “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His…” As we want to know God He is the one who provides us with the strength and the power to live the Christian life. It is God who is the real strength and power in Elijah’s life.

“…before whom I stand…” Elijah recognises that he is the representative of God and that his mission is divinely ordained and divinely established, it doesn’t matter what Ahab says at all. For him the presence of God is more real than the presence of Ahab. We never get anywhere in the Christian life until we realise that the truth of God’s Word has to be more real to us than our experience, more real to us than any of the adversities that we face, the problems that we see; we have to see that God has a plan for us, that His plan is perfect and wherever that plan takes us God is going to sustain us and provide for us. That is exactly what Elijah was doing.

The other aspect of this has to do with Elijah’s mission. As a prophet he was representing God to the nation, and he is going to challenge the nation with their lack of obedience to God and the fact that they had violated the Mosaic covenant. This then expressed in the past phrase: “…surely there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” He recognises his authority but it doesn’t come from within Elijah, he is not just making this up, it comes from the Word of God—Leviticus 26:18-20, where God had expressed that one of the ways He would punish the nation was to bring a drought. Cf. Deuteronomy 11:16, 17. Of course, this would bring about a tremendous economic collapse in an agricultural society.     

There are six areas in which we see a comparison between 9th century BC Israel and the United States.     Kings 055b

   1. A biblical worldview has been replaced by a pagan worldview.

   2. As at that time, today we see that success and the worship of material prosperity was foremost.

   3. We see from the Scripture that the trend of the sin nature, once it rejects God, is to create a false world and a false view of life. It is a fantasy world. Functional atheists live as if there is no God, and when they start making policies based on fantasy that will eventually snowball into massive crises.

   4. We see that life is viewed as disposable.

   5. The result of religious decisions ultimately impact policy decisions, and so when the religion that dominates a culture is a false religion, a false view of God, a false view of reality, then the policies that come out of that are also false and destructive.

   6. We see that those who stand up for absolutes and objective truth will be demonized, marginalized and criminalized.  

What we need to remember is the five basic principles:

   1. As long as we trust in God there are no hopeless situations.

   2. If God is for us who can be against us, the Scriptures say. We never stand alone, God is always with us. Romans 8:31.

   3. We always take tests and multi-layer tests and God uses the adversity in our lives in order to teach us to trust in Him. That is what is going to happen with Elijah.

   4. We realize that when we do the right thing the right way the result might not always be what we originally intended or expected. Elijah did not know that God was going to hide him for three and a half years, feed him by the ravens by the brook Cherith for a while, then later take him into the heart of enemy territory in Zarephath and there feed him by means of a widow. But God doesn’t show us what is happening, what tomorrow will hold, for we are to live one day at a time.

   5. When a nation is under discipline even the positive believers will suffer by association, and we need to remember that this is just a time when we need to accelerate our own spiritual growth. We need to be reminded of key promises in God’s Word, such as:

Passover meal:There are fourteen reasons why this must be a

Passover meal:There are fourteen reasons why this must be a

‎1)      Matthew, Mark and Luke specifically state that this is a Passover meal. , ; , ; , , , .

‎2)      It follows the procedures and policies that are stated in the Mosaic Law in . It takes place within the walls of Jerusalem despite the fact of the crushing crowds.

‎3)      The upper room was clearly made available to them in keeping with the Passover custom.

‎4)      The meal is eaten at night. Normally the Jews wouldn’t eat a major meal at night, so this, too, indicates that there was something special about this meal. ; ; ; Corinthians 11:23.

‎5)      In custom with the standard operating procedure of the Passover meal Jesus limited Himself to a rather small group of the twelve rather than eating with a larger group.

‎6)      They ate in a reclining posture. A reclining posture was reserved for special occasions.

‎7)      The meal followed the Levitical ritual purification procedures.

‎8)      Jesus broke the bread during the meal rather than at the beginning of the meal. ; .

‎9)      They drank red wine which was also a sign of a special occasion.

‎10)   Some of the disciples thought that Judas left to purchase items for the feast or perhaps to take money to the poor (they didn’t hear the interchange). If it was to purchase items that would indicate that he couldn’t do it the next day.

‎11)   Some of the disciples thought that Judas left to give money to the poor, which was another custom observed on the Passover. .

‎12)   The meal ended with the singing of a hymn, which was typical of a Passover meal. They always ended by singing .

‎13)   Jesus did not return to Bethany which was outside of the Jerusalem city limits, He instead went to the Mount of Olives that night. If He had gone to Bethany He would have left the confines of Jerusalem and that is where Passover had to be held, He had to stay there.

‎14)   The use and interpretation of the elements in terms of the Lord’s table was in keeping with the Passover ritual.

Passover: when was it eaten.

Passover: when was it eaten.

1)      That Jesus just simply eats the Passover meal early. That, however, would be impossible because the Passover lamb had to be slaughtered within the temple precincts and therefore no Passover lamb would have been slaughtered yet.

‎2)      Jesus and His disciples followed the calendar of the Essenes who lived down at Qumran. This would have put the Passover meal on the Qumran calendar two days earlier than the Judean calendar. But there is no indication that Jesus or His disciples had any association with the Essene community at Qumran.

‎3)      The Pharisees and the Sadducees operated on two different calendars. With the Pharisees the Passover would be celebrated one night and the Sadducees had a calendar that said the 14th and the 15th is the next night.

‎4)      The best solution is that they computed their days differently. One way to divide time is from midnight to midnight, the Gentile way, the Roman calendar way. Then the Judeans figured it from sunset to sunset, . Then there is a Galilean calendar that ran from sunrise to sunrise. This we see from where it says the women came to the tomb late on the Sabbath “as it began to dawn toward the first {day} of the week.” So they are coming early in the morning just before dawn and it is called “late on the Sabbath.” am, or what we would call Sunday, is still Saturday. Sunday didn’t begin until the sun came up. So obviously some were operating on a different calendar system. The best solution to the problem is that both of these were in operation during Jesus’ time. The Galileans and the Pharisees operated on a sunrise to sunrise calendar. It tells us that according to a Galilean calendar—and Jesus is with His disciples who are all Galileans—their day starts at sunrise, so they would eat the Passover meal legitimately based on their calendar on one night and the Judeans and the Sadducees were operating on a completely different calendar and would observe Passover the next night.

Pastor, Terms for a

The Biblical Terms for a Pastor  RD/3 John 001

   1. Ephesians 4:11 NASB “And He gave some {as} apostles, and some {as} prophets, and some {as} evangelists, and some {as} pastors and teachers.” Jesus Christ is the one envisioned in this passage as the one in authority over the Holy Spirit (the one who distributes spiritual gifts, 1 Corinthians 12), and Jesus Christ provides four specific spiritual gifts for the equipping of the saints. Apostles and prophets were temporary gifts that died out at the end of the first century. The only two of these gifts that survive through the church age are the gift of evangelist and the gift of pastor-teacher. The reason that the gift of pastor-teacher is combined into one gift is because in the structure of this particular Greek phrase is one article plus a noun, plus the conjunction “and” plus another noun. If they were two different gifts there would be a repetition of the article. The two nouns are viewed as synonymous; the second one provides a definition for how the first one functions. The first word that is used is poimen [poimhn] which means a shepherd and denotes the shepherd’s leadership over the flock. A shepherd is the one who guides the sheep into a pasture where they can be provided with their physical nourishment; a pastor is the one who watches over them and protects them from their enemies, the one who keeps the sheep from doing stupid things that would create self-inflicted harm. By analogy the term indicates the leadership role of the spiritual gift. As the shepherd leads and directs the flock, so the pastor is to lead and direct the congregation. It necessarily includes the concept of authority. You do not have many shepherds over one flock, you have one shepherd who understands the vision, the goals, the objectives for that particular flock, and he is the one who is responsible to God for that flock. There can therefore be only one leader and one vision for a congregation. There are some parameters for how the shepherding operation functions. No pastor can fulfil his mission of equipping the saints unless he is teaching the mystery doctrine of the church age. This does not mean he ignores the Old Testament because it is the foundation for the New Testament. There are three things that are important for the pastor: a) He has to possess the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher. This needs to be identified in the process of his own spiritual growth and spiritual maturity, and it is usually evidenced by the efficacy of his ability to teach. He also needs to prepare the spiritual gift.

Sheep. a) A sheep cannot guide itself; it has no inner sense of direction. In the same way a pastor must guide the people in the pews. He does this by teaching; his role is really restricted to teaching; b) A sheep cannot cleans itself. A pastor-teacher teaches the principles of how the believer can be cleansed from post-salvation sins; c) A sheep is a defenceless animal. The only protection the Sheep has is the shepherd. If the shepherd isn’t doing his job the sheep will be destroyed. In the same way by analogy, the pastor protects the sheep by teaching the truth and by exposing error. The pastor has to give the sheep the information they need so that they can develop critical thinking skills and avoid false teaching; d) A sheep is helpless when it is injured and completely dependent upon the shepherd to care for its wounds and get it medicine. In the same sense, when a believer is injured through suffering, adversity and hardships in life it is the pastor-teacher who helps him recover from his injuries through the teaching of the mechanics of the spiritual life—the ten problem-solving devices—so that the believer can recover and handle the situation through the grace mechanics that God has supplied for the believer in the Christian life; e) A sheep cannot find food or water for itself and it dependent upon the shepherd for these. In the same sense it is the gifting of a man with the gift of pastor-teacher who communicates the truth to the congregation. The congregation cannot feed itself. The believer should read the Scriptures, familiarise himself with the Scripture, with the promises of God in the Scripture, but he cannot feed himself from the Scripture. It is necessary to have the pastor-teacher; that is why God gives the pastor-teacher to the church; f) A sheep is easily frightened or panicked. The shepherd calms the sheep with his voice or with music. By analogy, it is the teaching of the pastor that prepares the sheep for any and every disaster in life so that they can remove fear, worry, and anxiety from their life as they apply the principles of doctrine; g) A sheep produces wool as a result of the care of the shepherd. By analogy, as the pastor teaches the Word of God and as the believer takes in the Word of God under the teaching ministry of God the Holy Spirit, and abides in Christ and walks by means of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is produced. As that fruit of the Spirit is produced it gives testimony to the will of God and to the grace of God, and God is glorified; h) Sheep are the only animal in all of nature that cannot live on their own. They cannot live in isolation, they must be taken care of by a shepherd. In the same way, believers cannot live in isolation from the body of Christ and from a pastor-teacher. Many have tried and they always fall into carnality.

   2. The second term for a pastor is didaskalos [didaskaloj]. Not everything a shepherd does to sheep is analogous to something a pastor would do to a congregation. So we have to realise that the Bible is going to define the parameters of the metaphor. The Bible restricts and defines the parameters of pastor by this second noun, “teacher.” This fits perfectly with what Jesus told the disciples in John 21. He said to Peter three times: “If you love me, feed my sheep.” So this second word in Ephesians 4:11 restricts the function of pastor to teaching.    3. A third word used in the New Testament to refer to the leader of a congregation s episkopos [e)piskopoj]. This is the word that meant overseer, the supervisor, the one who is the guardian of the flock. This emphasises his authority in some sense, that he is the overseer of the congregation, the one who is the policy-maker and the one who directs the congregation. Philippians 1:1; 1 Timothy 3:1, 2; Titus 1:7; 1 Peter 2:25; 5:2. This is the word that was transliterated over into English as Episcopal.    4. Another word that is sometimes used in reference to a pastor is “minister.” The word in the Greek is diakonos [diakonoj] which originally meant someone who waited on tables. So the emphasis here is on the pastor-teacher as someone who is a servant of the congregation, and he serves the congregation by teaching them the Word of God.    5. A fourth word used is persbuteros [presbuteroj] and this emphasises the individual’s seniority and authority—not that he is necessarily physically older but the senior leader, the highest authority in the local congregation. 1 Timothy 5:17, 19; Titus 1:5; James 5:14; 1 Peter 5:1. Every local church has only one leader.      6. Two other words used are related to one another. The noun is kerux [khruc] and was originally a term describing the herald of the king, the person who went out announcing the decisions of the monarch, the policies of the monarch. The verb kerusso [khrussw] is the verb meaning to proclaim the plan and the policy of the king. These two words describe the function of the pastor-teacher.      

Pastor-Teacher

Pastor-Teacher; 3 John 1    RD/3 John 002-003

The concept of preparation for the ministry: what is needed to prepare a man for the ministry?

We live in a world where we are so used to instant gratification in everything that we forget that some things take a long time. You can’t make certain things happen over night. It takes years for quality, integrity and character to develop in an individual; it takes years for real maturation to take place; it takes years for maturity in the spiritual life to take place. Certain things take just as long today as they did not the first century and just as long as they did 2000 years before Christ. The same thing is true in terms of preparation for the ministry, and we have lost that understanding. Principle: In a growing, advancing civilisation people are always pursuing excellence and quality and they constantly re-evaluate everything they are doing in terms of excellence and quality. But once a civilisation begins to decline people accept the status quo, they begin to do things the way they always did things, they are no longer on the cutting edge, no longer innovating, they are just glad to get by on what has been accomplished in the past. This is unfortunately what is happening in too many churches today. We think that because of certain technology that is available today for Bible study that we don’t need to do the same old fashioned hard work that was required in years past in terms of going to seminary, studying the original languages—Hebrew of the Old Testament and Greek of the New Testament, and spending years studying theology and understanding the Bible. This is what prepares a pastor to pastor. What happens in a declining civilisation is that people tend to settle not only for the status quo but also minimum requirements and minimum expectation—what is the least amount I have to do in order to accomplish the job.

   1. A man has to have a spiritual gift of pastor-teacher, and the possession of the spiritual gift of pastor-teacher and the vocation of pastor-teacher is the highest calling a man can receive. It is the pastor-teacher who provides the spiritual nourishment for the congregation. It is the pastor who teaches how to have a relationship with God. Nothing is more important than that function and operation. The individual cannot get out of the Bible everything he needs for spiritual growth. He can read the Bible, be reminded of many promises, and learn many basic concepts but without someone who has the gift of pastor-teacher he cannot grow out of spiritual infancy. It is the pastor-teacher who protects the congregation from the incursions of false doctrine and false thinking. It is the pastor-teacher who challenges us to refrain from destructive patterns that will bring divine discipline and self-induced misery. It is the pastor-teacher who brings us the Word of God that refreshes our souls, renovates our thinking, reminds us of the truth, restores our vision and reinforces our hope. This is why the gift and the calling of pastor-teacher is the highest calling that there is in life.    2. Therefore, having the gift of pastor-teacher requires the greatest preparation of any function in life. In other professions society rightly expects and requires usually two things before putting someone in a position of serious responsibility and authority. First it requires a specific course of training. Many pastors today do not have the standard of education and training that they should have.    3. Preparation for the pastor-teacher ministry involves two broad areas, the general and the specific. There is general personal preparation which focuses on the development of the individual in terms of his personal discipline and habits which are necessary for a lifetime of study. He needs to be a self-starter and a self-motivator. To function as a pastor he needs to have a well developed sense of responsibility so that he can function in the process of studying and teaching. The gift of pastor-teacher demands that this person be a lifetime student of the Word of God. A pastor-teacher should go through group academics, formal academics, and go to a seminary because that is what teaches him how to think. Doing a correspondence course doesn’t expose a person to other ideas and opinions. He needs to learn how to answer and to change his views. He needs to learn how to think so that he is not dependent on someone else to do his thinking for him. In terms of spiritual preparation the pastor-teacher must prepare for the ministry through his own personal advance. He needs to be a person who disciplines himself to study the Word under a pastor-teacher who can teach him.    4. Preparation, then, relates to the principle that God uses prepared men. It is not just a matter of getting under a pastor-teacher and learning to regurgitate what he says, you have to learn to think on your own. No pastor is infallible. Every one of us makes mistakes and every one of us learns from the mistakes of our predecessors and builds on that. That is the whole history of the church age. One generation builds on the learning and advances of the previous generation. It is prepared men who are going to fill the vacuum in our world today because there are very few pastors coming out of seminaries today who are trained to teach the Word.    5. Qualification in terms of ordination. Some churches ordain a person if he just thinks he has the gift of pastor-teacher and leave it up to God to handle the situation. That isn’t how it used to be. Those people don’t want a quality leader, they just want somebody to make them feel comfortable. The issue isn’t whether he has the gift of pastor-teacher, the issue is whether he has trained himself and gone through the rigorous qualifications necessary to use his gift. Ordination exams should include three areas: a) written exams that evaluate a man’s ability to exegete from the original languages; b) he should be given a written exam in relationship to doctrine to make sure he at least understands doctrine; c) an oral exam to determine what he understands and what he believes, to see if he can think on his feet, to give him the opportunity to verbally express himself before an audience so that it can be seen that he really does have the gift of pastor-teacher. As part of the process he should be required to submit one or two tapes where he has been teaching a group so that those who are evaluating him for ordination can see that he actually has the ability to teach the Word. These should be the standards to keep the standard high for ordination.

Pastor-Teacher

Two principles to always keep in mind in relationship to a pastor-teacher:   RD/1 Cor. 024

1) We have to recognize that every pastor-teacher is growing spiritually, just like we are. He is to be dealt with in grace, just as we are.

2) Pastor-teacher is a spiritual gift, it is not a personality type. Don’t make the mistake of confusing a certain personality with the gift of pastor-teacher.

What is the relationship of the pastor to the authority of the congregation?

1)      The pastor-teacher is the leader of the congregation. That is the emphasis in POIMAINOS [poimhnoj] as a pastor—a shepherd. A shepherd leads the sheep. He leads the congregation in the teaching of the Word of God. As such he is under the authority of the local board only in a sort of secondary or derivative way.

2)      He is not to be viewed as an employee of the board or the congregation. Along with this same point we must realize that a church doesn’t pay a pastor in the same sense that a person is paid for the jobs he does. A pastor is serving the Lord Jesus Christ and a congregation is giving financially to support the pastor so that he can spend his time studying and teaching and not be distracted by other events in life. When that money leaves the hand and hits the offering plate or box, it is no longer yours or the pastors, it is the Lord’s.

3)      That brings us to the third part of verse 1: “stewards of the mysteries of God.” That has to do with the teaching of doctrine. A pastor teacher is an administrator of the mystery doctrine of the church age. 

Pastor-Teachers

Warning for anyone who aspires to be a teacher, for five reasons:   RD/James/052

1)      Teachers handle the infallible Word of God. 2 Timothy 3:16 says that all Scripture is God-breathed--the Greek word THEOPNEUTOS [qeopneustoj], a combination of the word for breath and God. He is the active one involved in the process.

2)      As a teacher you are responsible to communicate truth, eternal truth, the truth of Scripture, not opinions. It is very important for teachers to make sure that they don’t find something in the Scripture that just substantiates their own opinion. They have to make sure that they are doing exegesis, which is deriving truth out of Scripture, and not eisegesis which is reading opinions into Scripture.

3)      There is always the temptation for teachers to become subjective in times of testing, so that when you as a teacher are going through times of testing in your own life it is very easy for you to become subjective and to start looking at the Scripture through the limitations of your own experiences. So it is important for anyone who is handling the Word of God to have developed a certain stage of objectivity so that they can rise above their own culture, rise above their own background, rise above their own personal prejudices and biases and likes and dislikes, so that they can have true objectivity when it comes to the Word of God. This is true for any pastor.

4)      Teachers need to learn their own cultural biases and limitations and not read those into the text of Scripture. The classic example we have today is that we are living in what one particular church historian has called the psychotherapeutic age. That is how he defines the post-World War II era, i.e. the age of psychology, and we are all imbued from one degree to another with psychological terminology. Just think back and see if you have used any words like victimization, self-image, or anything else like that in the last week. That is just one indication of how you have picked up and been affected by this in our society.

5)      We need to realise, as James states here, there is a greater judgment to those who teach the Word.

Paul

Paul’s life prior to his conversion  RD/Gal/006

1)       Paul was born in the town of Tarsus, located in the south-eastern corner of Asia Minor.

2)       When we talk about Paul’s childhood and his background we know that he called himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews. This is an interesting phrase found in Philippians chapter three. We also know that Paul was a Roman citizen. He was born a Roman citizen which was an incredibly prestigious position. There weren’t that many people in Tarsus who were Roman citizens, so that tells us that his family was of the social elite even though they were Jews. But they maintained their connections with Jerusalem.

3)       When he was a fairly young child we know that he was sent to Jerusalem by the family and there he was to be eventually trained by Gamaliel who was one of the most prominent Pharisees in the New Testament times in Judea.

4)       When Paul is first introduced to us it is in connection with the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution that followed in approximately 35 AD. He was probably about 30 years of age and therefore just a few years younger than our Lord. If he was in Jerusalem as a boy at a very young age then that would mean that during our Lord’s public ministry he would be very familiar with everything that surrounded that, but he is just not mentioned at all in any of the Gospels. At the stoning of Stephen he was very much in hostility to Christianity.

5)       After Stephen’s stoning he becomes the chief persecutor of the church. Acts 8:3; Acts 22:4 “I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, [5] as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.”  In Galatians 1:13 the word for “destroy” means he tried to wipe out the church, tried to eradicate it.

Paul Life Prior to His Conversion

Paul’s Life Prior to His Conversion  RD/Gal/006

1)       Paul was born in the town of Tarsus, located in the south-eastern corner of Asia Minor.

2)       When we talk about Paul’s childhood and his background we know that he called himself a Hebrew of the Hebrews. This is an interesting phrase found in Philippians chapter three. We also know that Paul was a Roman citizen. He was born a Roman citizen which was an incredibly prestigious position. There weren’t that many people in Tarsus who were Roman citizens, so that tells us that his family was of the social elite even though they were Jews. But they maintained their connections with Jerusalem.

3)       When he was a fairly young child we know that he was sent to Jerusalem by the family and there he was to be eventually trained by Gamaliel who was one of the most prominent Pharisees in the New Testament times in Judea.

4)       When Paul is first introduced to us it is in connection with the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution that followed in approximately 35 AD. He was probably about 30 years of age and therefore just a few years younger than our Lord. If he was in Jerusalem as a boy at a very young age then that would mean that during our Lord’s public ministry he would be very familiar with everything that surrounded that, but he is just not mentioned at all in any of the Gospels. At the stoning of Stephen he was very much in hostility to Christianity.

5)       After Stephen’s stoning he becomes the chief persecutor of the church. Acts 8:3; Acts 22:4 “I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons, [5] as also the high priest and all the Council of the elders can testify. From them I also received letters to the brethren, and started off for Damascus in order to bring even those who were there to Jerusalem as prisoners to be punished.”  In Galatians 1:13 the word for “destroy” means he tried to wipe out the church, tried to eradicate it.

Galatians 1:14 NASB “and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.” Paul was climbing the corporate ladder of Judaism on the bodies of the Christians he slew. Traditions can be good but they can also be bad. The issue is traditions is never the tradition. Tradition is a straightjacket that can destroy you if you don’t have your traditions grounded in the absolutes of doctrine. What had happened with the Jews was that they had made their ancestral traditions, what they had added to Scripture, the absolute rather than Scripture itself.

In verses 15-17 we have an evidence from Paul’s conversion and his conduct immediately after that. Galatians 1:15 NASB “But when God, who had set me apart {even} from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased [16] to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, [17] nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus.” In these three verses he is going to establish the point that his conversion was on the basis of an appearance by the Lord Jesus Christ to him on the road to Damascus, it did not come through men. After that he had no contact with the apostles. The point he is making is that the message he is proclaiming is one that came directly from God.

Paul's Salvation

The account of how Paul came to know the Lord in

Acts 9  RD/Gal/006

Acts 9:1 NASB “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, [2 ]and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way [Christians], both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. [3] As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.” There is this bright light flashing around him and he is blinded by its intensity. [4] “and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’”

Saul is not directly persecuting the Lord Jesus Christ, he is persecuting believers who are the body of Christ. So if anybody does to us they are doing the same to the Lord. Saul gets the point immediately. The self-revelation of Jesus Christ in all of His Shekinah glory means that Saul recognises at that instant that Jesus is all that He claimed to be; He is the saviour of the world. This is indicated by Paul’s response because he said [5] “And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’” Jesus is termed Lord there to signify His deity, and Paul recognises that. “And He {said,} ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting, [6] but get up and enter the city, and it will be told you what you must do’.”

Acts 9:7 NASB “The men who traveled with him stood speechless, hearing the voice but seeing no one.” What happens here is not subjective. It was not just a subjective religious experience on the part of the apostle Paul. The idea is fraudulent because if we are honest with what the Scripture says, while the men who were with him did not understand what Jesus said and could not hear the specific words because it was an appearance only for the apostle Paul, they saw the light and they heard a voice. That means something happened in space-time history that was objective and real. It wasn’t something happening only inside the mind of Paul. God does not do anything privately or subjectively that He does not verify and substantiate objectively in the real world of space-time history. Acts 9:8 NASB “Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he could see nothing; and leading him by the hand, they brought him into Damascus.” 

In Acts 26 Paul is giving his defence before Herod Agrippa. Acts 26:1 NASB “Agrippa said to Paul, ‘You are permitted to speak for yourself.’ Then Paul stretched out his hand and {proceeded} to make his defense.” The Greek word translated “defense” is apologia [a)pologia], the word from which we get our English word “apology.” But the Greek word doesn’t mean apology, it is a technical, legal word that means to present your defence. When  you are a believer and you are presenting the gospel you are to always be ready to give an answer –1 Peter 3:15. There we have this same Greek word. It means to give a defence, make a case, to give objective reasons for why you believe what you believe.

Acts 26:2 NASB “In regard to all the things of which I am accused by the Jews, I consider myself fortunate, King Agrippa, that I am about to make my defense before you today; [3] especially because you are an expert in all customs and questions among {the} Jews; therefore I beg you to listen to me patiently. [4] So then, all Jews know my manner of life from my youth up, which from the beginning was spent among my {own} nation and at Jerusalem; [5] since they have known about me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that I lived {as} a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion. [6] And now I am standing trial for the hope of the promise made by God to our fathers.” So he goes back to the Old Testament and he is going to relate it to the fulfilment of prophecy from hundreds of years prior to the coming of Christ. [7] “{the promise} to which our twelve tribes hope to attain, as they earnestly serve {God} night and day. And for this hope, O King, I am being accused by Jews. [8] Why is it considered incredible among you {people} if God does raise the dead?” He focuses on the resurrection.   

People Testing

People Testing RD/1Sam/075

1. People testing takes place when we are faced with challenges in personal relationships.

Two forms:

People who oppose us

People who challenge our loyalty

2. All people testing is resolved through the use of the

Walking by the Spirit

Grace Orientation

Doctrinal Orientation

Personal Love for God

Impersonal Love for Others

3. People testing falls under the category of all suffering. Therefore,

a. Deserved: It is the direct result of our own sinfulness;

b. Undeserved: It is the direct result of the sinfulness of those we are closely related to;

c. Undeserved: It is undeserved and designed for personal spiritual growth

4. When we are under attack, rejection, perceived rejection, overt hostility, then we follow these steps.

1. We turn it over to the Lord,

2. We think in terms of divine justice as seen in David’s in

3. We go the extra mile in being kind, thoughtful, and gracious to the one who is the source of the test. Example: The Good Samaritan.

4. We do not dwell on personal affronts, injuries, insults, or assaults. Whenever we dwell on those things, or let them influence our behavior, we are putting the other person and our sin nature in control. This means we put that person in a position to influence our life and happiness.

People, Three Kinds of

Three Different kinds of People on the Earth.

   1. There are those who believed Christ died on the cross for you sins and that there is nothing you can do for salvation.

   2. Those that rejected it because of the influence of philosophy or human thought down through the ages.  They rejected even the possibility that there is a God or absolutes.  These are folks that believe that if there is any meaning or value or significance in their lives it has to come from mankind.  There is no God. We are just a bunch of cosmic accidents.

   3. Then there is the religious group.  These were the folks standing outside. It is not restricted to Jews.  It can include any human being.  They tend to fall into one of the two categories that were found in Judaism at that time.  The Sadducees are the religious types.  They did not really believe that there was an omnipotent, omnipresent God who interacted in history.  They wee the liberal element. They denied the supernatural.  They denied the existence of angels.  They rejected a future resurrection. They were rationalist, religious crowd.  Then there were the Pharisees. They were the legalistic religious crowd.   There are represented by every religious on earth today except Biblical Christianity.  The religious crowd thinks that somehow by virtue of their good works, by virtue of their participation in rituals, or activities that somehow it impresses God and somehow they can gain His favor or approval.  That somehow compensates for any sin in their life.

Personal Love

Personal Love   RD/James/020

 Definition of personal love: Personal love is a category of love that is selective, conditional and dependent. It is always based on some conditional element such as, As long as you do this I will love you. It is selective, limited to a few. It is dependent upon the appeal or merit in the person loved. Personal love requires no virtue on the part of the lover, everything is based on the performance of the person being loved, and it persists only as long as the object of love remains attractive, likeable, and fulfils the expectations of the lover. Only a few chosen people truly qualify to be the objective of our personal love.

Personal Love

Personal Love  RD/Matt/136c

This emphasizes the starting point for personal love for anyone. If were going to love other people it has to start with understanding this that is in both Old Testament and New Testament.

The last time I started looking at how we learn to love God and pointing out that in the essence of God part of his essential attribute is that He is love. We also have passages in Scripture that talked about the fact that God is righteous in God is just, but we have a number of passages, such as in first John chapter 4, that talk about God is love.

Our conclusion from that that we need to be reminded of before we build on it is that therefore we must understand divine love if were going to understand love in any sense whatsoever. If you're married and you tell your spouse you love them, is that a love that is predicated on an understanding of God's love, or is that just a love that is predicated on the world and how the world looks at things. That's a very important question to ask that something that you parents and grandparents need to be teaching your little grandchildren because is more you front load their thinking with biblical concepts when there 3, 4 and 5, the better it's going to protect them when their 15, 16 and 17. You wait till they are 15, 16 and 17 and it's too late. They've already sucked up the world's thinking on what love is.

So that led to the next (first) point. What is divine love? We have to understand this, that the pattern, the paradigm, the picture for divine love in Scripture is the cross. The more I teach, the more I go to the Scripture, the more I understand how important it is that we need to think about cross. We need to think about the all the dimensions of soteriology because this helps us to understand the love of God and how His love is manifest to us.

We looked at these passages last time. , "For God loved the world", literally in this way. It's the Greek word HOUTOS, which doesn't mean love it so much, it means God love the world in this way. And then he tells us how God loved us. He sent his only begotten son. He "gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life". This is echoed by Paul in , "God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us".

It's a love that is not focused on who we are what we done. When we say, I love you, so often overlooked saying is when looking at a person and were saying. There's something about you that makes me feel better. Often I joke that if I were accurate in my wedding ceremonies I would have the bride and groom looked at one another and say you make me feel so wonderful and so happy that I'm in a give you the opportunity to make me feel like that for the rest of my life. And we all understand how selfish that is and how self-centered that is. That's just the opposite of love but that is so often what characterizes relationships today.

What we see in the Scripture is God's love, the pattern for what our love should be, is a dependent or conditioned on the character the qualities the behavior the actions of the person that is loved. It is based on God's character, not our character, and that means that we have to understand more about God's character. And that's where His righteousness and his justice come to play because his righteousness and justice gives us that understanding that this love is a love that is predicated on character. It is predicated on integrity, not on the ephemeral and mutating attributes of the object of love.

That leads to the second point. God's love for us is not based on our actions, our character, our successes or failures, our morality or lack of morality, or any other human factor. It is without conditions on our part. That's what real love is. So if we're going to love God it comes as a response. Scripture says we love him because He first loved us. He initiates, we respond. But as we respond to His love it is because we understand His love and the integrity of His love, and only that gives us the real ability to love one another. That's not just in the relationships that we have as in romantic relationships of the man and woman, or in family relations of parents to children and children to parents, but also relationships outside the home, relationships to those who are classified in Scripture as our neighbor. As Jesus says it involves one another, and in those passages it is primarily focusing on others in the body of Christ, but the constant repetition in the Scripture of also emphasizes the love is to those who are not believers, those who aren't in the family of God.

So to begin with we have to understand that our love reflects God's love, and God's love is based exclusively on His character and has nothing to do with our character. Ultimately if you want to be a better lover, when you say to your spouse or to your children or your friends that you love them, that consciously in our minds has to be predicated on, "I love them not because of who they are; I love them because of who God is". And my love for other people has to be built on my understanding of the integrity of God.

The third point. God's love for us was such that He devised a solution for our greatest problem. Our greatest problem is your bank account, our greatest problem is that the Democratic Party of the Republican Party; our greatest problem is sin. Everything else flows from what happened when Adam disobeyed God in the garden and plunged the entire human race into corruption and rebellion against God. But God has the only solution to that, and the consequence is that if God saw the greatest problem will ever face then God can solve all these other problems. But the only way we can solve all those other problems is if we start with the divine solution and not the human solution, because the human solution is a result of the work of the flesh, and the work of the flesh leads to hatred and anger and resentment and divisions and fragmentation, along with numerous other things. We have to really understand that the starting point has to be a biblical solution.

As I have observed different people with talking about all kinds of different things that have been going on in our culture—and you hear a number of theologians you hear a number of pastors come out with their solutions—you can break them all down. There's one group of pastors who understand the divine solution of grace and a Bible-based solution, and there are a lot of others who are just looking for any sort of other solution.

We live in a real world we live in a world that is dominated by a lot of unbelievers, and sometimes in political solutions you have to reach pragmatic solutions. There are certain solutions that we that we have to deal with on a practical level, but we as Christians understand that's not the ultimate solution, and that that solution only will work if it is somehow part of an ultimate framework that focuses on the divine solution. That is not always easy to discern, but that's what we have to learn to think through.

The fourth point is that God's love for us involves his whole essence. It is perfectly compatible with all the other attributes, specifically with his righteousness. If we're going to ever talk about social justice and social righteousness—and I despise those terms because they come with a lot of baggage, and the baggage that they are caring is Marxism and Leninism and progressivism, and these are all antithetical to anything that is taught in the word of God.

But the Bible does talk about justice, and righteousness. Righteousness is His standard, the standard that God has, and it's based upon His character, not some external abstract characteristic of righteousness that God subscribes to and we should also. It is His character, so we have to really know God and really study his works in history to understand what righteousness actually is. The solution has to be consistent with His righteousness and justice as well. Justice is the application of His righteousness. Righteousness is His standard, justice relates to the application of that standard.

In both Hebrew and Greek the words that are translated righteousness and justice are the same words, because the two sides of the same coin. One side is the standard of God's character; the other side is the application of that standard to his creatures. Righteousness and justice go together and neither of them is juxtaposed to His love but both function with another characteristic, His omniscience. He has a solution that is based on his complete and thorough knowledge of every dimension of every problem.

God understands all the social problems, whether the social problems of the Egyptians in the ancient world, or the Romans in the ancient world, or whether to social problems of Russia, the social problems in Islam, the social problems in America, God knows that it's the same solution for every one of them. In His omnipotence, He was able to solve all of the problems. There is no sin that is too great for the love the grace and the power of God.

One of the problems you have in eastern orthodox Christianity is that they have failed to understand eternal security, and if there is no eternal security you don't have a God who can truly solve your problems. And that gets into a really deep, profound conversation, but it always works itself out in practical realities. This is why you've never had anything approaching the stability of the West in Eastern Christianity. It is because they have a false view of God and His power and His ability to solve problems. It is better in the West, and then its highest form in the 19th century under English language-based theology you had the greatest, sort of high watermark, of Christian influence in history and culture. That doesn't mean they were perfect. We are never going to have perfection in this world. That's the lie that's offered by Marxism and progressivism. It is a utopianism that is completely contrary to the word of God, so you are never going to get there.

In fact, if that was understood by our founding fathers. Our founding fathers did not set forth in the Constitution that they were going to form a perfect union. It's a work in progress. They said they were going to form a more perfect union; more is a relative term. It is a work in progress but it's a work in progress and must be predicated on divine viewpoint and their thinking was for the most part.

So God's love is compatible with these other aspects of his character and they all work together, and they all intersect together.

The fifth point is that God's love is also described in terms of faithfulness and loyalty. The Hebrew word is the word chesed. You may have heard the word hasid or Hasidic Jews, or Hasidim. It is the same word. The original Hasidic Jews (not related to the ones we know of today) were a sect that probably gave birth to the Pharisees after the return from Babylon. They wanted to go back to being faithful and loyal to God so they took this word that is primarily used in the Old Testament as a characteristic of God and his faithful loyalty to his people based on based on his covenant.

So when God says to Israel, I love you is that of romantic love? Is that an emotional love? No, is it a contractual love. Doesn't that sound romantic? But that's what it is; it is a contractual love. That is the same thing that you did with your wife when you stood up in front of a pastor or a member of the legal profession or judge or someone. You swore on a contractual basis that you were going to love your spouse, whether things are good or bad, whether you are healthy or sick, whether you are in prosperity or adversity; whatever the conditions you were in. Then you signed a legal document. You made a contract, a covenant. This is what love is. It is based on loyalty to a covenant. This is what chesed is. It is translated that way in passages such as , "Therefore know that the Lord your God, he is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy." There is the word. Not keeps covenant, but mercy. That is often translated mercy or lovingkindness, "and mercy for a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments". Notice the connection: love is measured by keeping his commandments.

The Sixth point. God's love is sufficient to solve the greatest problem we will ever face, and therefore it solves whatever sin problems we face. We all live in this Devils world, which means it's a corrupt unjust place. Every one of us faces injustices; every one of us faces inequities; every one of us faces hostility from other people, for whatever reason. But it is God's solution that enables us to surmount whatever those individual problems may be and being able to respond in biblical love to those who are in opposition. And when were operating on a human viewpoint solution it is not biblical love and will always manifest as some kind of divisiveness and hostility.

The seventh point takes us back to understanding our response to God. We love him because He first loved us (). Personal love for God is our response to God's initiating love.

Point number eight. Love for God therefore is based on knowledge and knowledge of God. We learn to love God by learning who He is and what is done for us. It doesn't happen overnight. As children—think about your relationship with your parents—you had child's love for your parents. But as you came to know your parents and you lived with them and you grew up through childhood to adolescence that love matured. But it was based on knowledge until you became an adult. The same thing is true in the spiritual life. The love that we have when were brand-new Christians is different from the love that we have when we are mature believers. Because we grow in the knowledge of who God is and what He has done for us. says, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love". If you are operating on the sin nature then the Holy Spirit is not going be producing love in your life. And so if you don't love, then the opposite is you don't know God, there is no spiritual growth.

Not knowing God doesn't mean you are not saved. In John's language not knowing God means your ignorant about who God is. You've never grown; you've never learned the word; you've never come to understand who God is. Love for God is based on knowledge; we have to know the Word of God. That's our priority. We have to read it

For the last year we have had a lot of people reading through the Bible, and that's great. Now some people are starting a second time and now probe a little more deeply. Think about questions like, what is this? What am I coming to learn about God and how God relates to His creatures, and what God provides for those who are obedient to Him and those are disobedient to him? What are we learning about God that is going to develop our love for Him?

The ninth point is that love for God is first of all, based on knowledge, not emotion. It is not to be confused with sentiment or even gratitude.

I have seen this happen sometimes with couples. For whatever reason the initial attraction is that one has provided something for the other one and the response is gratitude. And they confuse that with love, get married and then they have problems. Love is not gratitude. Gratitude may be a component of love, but don't confuse the two. And love isn't a sentiment; it's not how you feel. It may produce some sentiment, but don't confuse the two, they are different. Love is not romantic. It may involve that, don't confuse the two.

The tenth point. So how do we know if we are loving God? says, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments."

Well, I'm going to love other people. Well wait a minute. Not if you are not loving God and his commandments. The Bible doesn't allow us to separate love for others from love for God. That is part of the metric. It is: How do we love God? We see it and how we love others. says, "God shows mercy to thousand, to those who love me and keep my commandments". There is always is connection in Scripture: that loving God is measured by obedience to God. It is not measured by how you feel; it's not measured by how you sway when using Christian choruses; it is measured by your knowledge of Scripture and your application Scripture.

Jesus says this in several times. In He says, If you love me, keep my commandments". That's the metric." That implies we have to know His commandments. We have to know the Word; we have to have the Word embedded in our soul before we can understand how to obey him, and obeying him is how we reflect that love that we have for Him. , Jesus said, "He who has my commands and keeps them, it is he who loves me". The implication is, if you're not keeping them, if you have just abstract knowledge and there's no and application in your life, then there's no real love for God; it is just talk; it is just emotion.

NASB "He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him.” This is an increase in fellowship, the deepening and strengthening of fellowship there.

NASB "Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him." That's fellowship again. That deepening relationship is related to loving God, keeping his Word.

And then the negative is expressed in verse 24 NASB "He who does not love Me does not keep My words …" So the one who doesn't love God doesn't keep His words, doesn't know His words, doesn't care about His words.

In , after reflecting on this for probably 40 or 50 years, John wrote: "If someone says I love God, and hates his brother, they I love God [that's the greatest commandment. And the second is like it to love your brother], he is a liar [he does not love his brother] for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen."

You can't disconnect those two commands. And this is what is happened in the social solutions that are predicated in this country that grow out of all of the human viewpoint worldviews, whether it is progressivism, Marxism, socialism, whatever it is, liberal Protestant Christianity. They have separated and made the priority out of loving one another without grounding it in the ultimate solution, which is loving God first. And when you do that it's no longer a work of the Spirit, it is a work of the flesh; and the end result is the destruction of the individual and his spiritual life, or the destruction of the family, or the destruction of a company, or the destruction of the nation. Any society fragments when the foundation is on human viewpoint.

NASB "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and observe His commandments."

Philosophy of History

Philosophy of History                       RD/Rev. 163b

    1. The nature of God;

    2. The nature of evil and suffering;

    3. The nature of justice;

    4. The Divine purpose for history.

God’s character

    [His righteousness, justice, love, in sum His integrity, His  goodness] is demonstrated most fully in a universe where evil is allowed to continue for a time (which entails injustice and suffering) in order for God to fully judge evil and end suffering.

Philosophy of Life

Philosophy of Life   RD/Kings 066b

Elements of a Religion, Philosophy, Worldview, or Approach to Life

  * Everyone has a philosophy of life. Some are conscious of it and are rationally consistent. Some have a conscious, thought-out philosophy of life; they have thought about it. But most people don’t; they don’t even think about it, they have just picked up this belief and that belief and made a sort of patchwork quilt in their head. They don’t even worry about the fact that it is not consistent, it just matters whatever makes them feel good at the moment. 

    * Every worldview or religion contains universals. That is really the window that we can use to get into how somebody thinks. Every worldview has some sort of sense of what should be done, what ought to be done, what is right and what is wrong.

    * Entry point to a worldview is often through your value or ethics, and that is going to open up all the other things that come along with it.

    * Ethical principles are always based on prior assumptions about the nature of truth or knowledge and the ultimate nature of the universe. When you say something is right you are basically saying it is true; if you say there is no such thing as absolute truth you are saying there is no such thing as absolute right or wrong.

Picture of the doctrine of Intercessory Prayer

This is a picture of the doctrine of intercessory prayer                                       RD/Gen. 099

1)      Intercession means to act as an advocate or a mediator between someone else and God. We are to do that in prayer. Every believer is to pray for one another, as well as to pray for the lost.

2)      Intercession in prayer occurs when a believer petitions God on behalf of others.

3)      Intercession is a function of grace orientation and impersonal love for others. We are to pray for other people, even for out enemies.  The key verse for this is James 5:16. The core part of that verse is to pray for one another “that you may be healed.” The word for healing there isn’t the word that we associate with physical healing, it is one that deals with spiritual recovery because of spiritual failure.

Plagues of Egypt

The Plagues and the Gods and Goddesses of Egypt (Bible Knowledge Commentary) RD/1Pet/089

1. Nile turned to blood– Hapi (also called Apis), the bull god, god of the Nile; Isis, goddess of the Nile; Khnum, ram god guardian of the Nile; and others

2. Frogs– Heqet, goddess of birth, with a frog head; Hapi, god of the Nile

3. Gnats– Set, god of the desert

4. Flies– Re, a sun god; or the god Uatchit, possibly represented by the fly

5. Death of livestock– Hathor, goddess with the cow head; Apis, the bull god, symbol of fertility; perhaps Ptah, Mnrvis also

6. Boils– Sekhmet, goddess with power over disease; Sunu, the pestilence god, Isis, goddess of healing

7. Hail– Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, god of crops and fertility; Set, god of storms

8. Locusts– Nut, the sky goddess; Osiris, god of crops and fertility

9. Darkness– Re, the sun god; Horus, a sun god; Nut, a sky goddess; Hathor, a sky goddess

10. Death of the firstborn– Min, god of reproduction; Heqet, goddess who attended women at childbirth; Isis, goddess who protected children; Pharaoh’s firstborn son, a god

The Plagues and the Gods and Goddesses of Egypt

• Their religious systems is a testimony that they know there is a God, but suppress that truth. .

• They are not morally or spiritually neutral.

• The purpose of the confrontation is to change Pharaoh’s mind.

• God directly challenges the false religious systems and demonstrates their impotence.

• This is showing the weaknesses of the human viewpoint system.

• The plagues provide historic facts and evidence to expose their sin and rebellion against God.

• The unbeliever is not in neutral ignorance, but willful ignorance.

Practical Guidelines for pastoral Compensation

Practical guidelines that should be part of the thinking in terms of compensation for a pastor 1 Cor. 047

1)      Keep some distinctions in mind. It is important to understand that there are differences between the size of the congregation; also the age of the congregation, i.e. a new church as opposed to one that is well established.

2)      Equivalent pay. The compensation for a pastor should be equivalent to someone of equal experience, education and training would make out in the secular arena.

3)      The pastor’s family should be generously taken care of so that the pastor’s wife should not have to work outside the home. This is especially true if there are children because the pastor’s family should be a model for how things should be.

4)      Grace and generosity should be the overriding principle.

5)      The faith-rest drill—trusting God to provide the resources. One of the reasons a lot of congregations don’t have the financial resources to support the pastor is because deacon boards and many people in the congregation are operating on a secular business principle and they are not trusting God to supply the resources and there is no application of the faith-rest drill. The church needs to operate on faith, trusting God to supply the resources to support the pastor.   

Pray, Why People Don't

Why people don’t pray  RD/1 John/065

1.      People don’t pray because they lack confidence in being heard. They don’t know anything about being in fellowship or 1 John 1:9, or anything about the spiritual life. They don’t understand confession and cleansing.

2.      Because of ignorance of what the Bible teaches related to prayer.

3.      They are ignorant of the mandate to pray without ceasing, i.e. continuously. It means that you are in fellowship with the Lord so that you can at all times carry on a conversation with God. 1 Thessalonians 5:17.

4.      They doubt God. They doubt that prayer changes things and they lack faith.

5.      They have experienced some disappointments in life, difficulties in life, and they have become embittered toward God. So they are in reaction to God.

6.      They have sucked up fatalism somewhere along the line and think that prayer really doesn’t change things. But James says you have not because you ask not.

Prayer

Seven Reasons Why Christians don’t Pray

RD/James/064

1)      They are in reversionism, in carnality, in rebellion against God, so they don’t want to come to God in dependence upon Him to ask Him for anything.

2)      They lack confidence in being heard because they have a sense of guilt and sin, and they don’t understand the doctrines related to confession and cleansing.

3)      People are generally ignorant of the biblical doctrine related to prayer and how to pray.  

4)      Christians are spiritually ignorant of the mandate to pray. They become too busy, too wrapped up in their own lives, too caught up with temporal things to focus on God. We are commanded to pray without ceasing. We are commanded in Colossians to devote ourselves to prayer.

5)      Some Christians doubt that God is really there or that prayer changes things. They just lack faith.

6)      Sometimes Christians have gone through periods of disappointment, especially in relation to trials and testing, and they think that God did not answer their prayer so they become bitter.

7)      Many Christians get caught up in forms of hyper-Calvinism and distortions of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and end up in fatalism. They just don’t think that prayer will do any good or change anything. Yet what James says right here is: “You do not have because you do not ask.” The implication is that there is contingency in the plan of God. Contingency does not mean that God learns something new or that God is surprised but that in His plan God decreed that His sovereignty and the volition of man would co-exist in human history. Within His plan He includes certain contingent factors, so that of we ask God will answer. If we don’t ask He won’t, it doesn’t affect the overall movement of God’s plan but it does affect the degree to which we experience God’s blessing in this life.

Prayer

‎ 

‎Seven Reasons Why Christians don’t Pray

‎RD/James/064

‎ 

‎1)      They are in reversionism, in carnality, in rebellion against God, so they don’t want to come to God in dependence upon Him to ask Him for anything.

‎ 

‎2)      They lack confidence in being heard because they have a sense of guilt and sin, and they don’t understand the doctrines related to confession and cleansing.

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‎3)      People are generally ignorant of the biblical doctrine related to prayer and how to pray.  

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‎4)      Christians are spiritually ignorant of the mandate to pray. They become too busy, too wrapped up in their own lives, too caught up with temporal things to focus on God. We are commanded to pray without ceasing. We are commanded in Colossians to devote ourselves to prayer.

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‎5)      Some Christians doubt that God is really there or that prayer changes things. They just lack faith.

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‎6)      Sometimes Christians have gone through periods of disappointment, especially in relation to trials and testing, and they think that God did not answer their prayer so they become bitter.

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‎7)      Many Christians get caught up in forms of hyper-Calvinism and distortions of the doctrine of the sovereignty of God and end up in fatalism. They just don’t think that prayer will do any good or change anything. Yet what James says right here is: “You do not have because you do not ask.” The implication is that there is contingency in the plan of God. Contingency does not mean that God learns something new or that God is surprised but that in His plan God decreed that His sovereignty and the volition of man would co-exist in human history. Within His plan He includes certain contingent factors, so that of we ask God will answer. If we don’t ask He won’t, it doesn’t affect the overall movement of God’s plan but it does affect the degree to which we experience God’s blessing in this life.

Prayer

Prayer is communication with God.

Prayer is just talking to God. In a lot of ways we can talk somewhat informally with the Lord. If you read the Psalms, there are times when the writers of the Psalms express their frustration and anger and the fact that they are really upset about some of the things God is doing. It’s an honest and open communication with God, as we think through who God is and what He’s doing in our lives. Basically I try to summarize the elements of prayer in an acronym, CATS. Prayer includes:

Confession;

Adoration, (thinking through who God is, praising Him for who He is and what He has done);

Thanksgiving, thanking God for what He has done; and

Supplication, which includes two things: asking God for things, and asking things for other people. That’s intercession. Sometimes we’re asking God for things for ourselves. That’s petition. These are the elements in prayer.

Priesthood in the Old Testament, Three Types of

Three Types of Priesthood in the Old Testament. 

RD/Heb. 042b

   1. There was a patriarchal priesthood.  We saw that on Tuesday night in our study of Genesis.  We saw that Isaac after he had been married to Rebekah for twenty years could not have any children.  She was barren.  So we studied that Hebrew word that was translated “Isaac pleaded with God on behalf of Rebekah”.  I pointed out that that word in its Arabic cognates as well as the way it is used in Zephaniah 3:10 indicates a prayer that is accompanied by ritual sacrifices.  This indicates it is a more intense form of prayer.  Now Isaac would be coming to offer that prayer and to make sacrifices on the basis of his patriarchal priesthood.  He was the head of the family.  It is not related to the later Levitical or Aaronic priesthoods because Aaron and Levi had not yet been born.  Isaac was the grandfather of Levi.  So there is a patriarchal priesthood that began with Adam and extended all the way down through the Old Testament. It was still in action even along side the Aaronic priesthood. 

   2. Then you have the Melchizedekean priesthood.  The Melchizedekean priesthood was a royal priesthood that was based on regeneration – not position in the family or genetic relationship to Levi.  It was based on regeneration and royalty.  The Melchizedekean priesthood becomes the category and the precedent for the Lord Jesus Christ’s priesthood.

   3.  Then you have the third type of priesthood it the Old Testament, the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood.  Aaron, Moses’ brother, was the high priest.  Levi was the tribe that Moses and Aaron came from.  The high priest had to be a direct descendent of Aaron, but any member of the Levitical tribe could serve in the temple.

Principles of Priesthood

Principles related to priesthood    RD/Heb. 042b

   1. There were three types of priesthoods in the Old Testament.  The first was patriarchal.  The second is the royal high priest which is represented by Melchizedek.  The third is the Aaronical or the Levitical high priest.  The Aaronical or Levitical high priest is set forth in the Mosaic Law.  The patriarchal high priesthood was indicated by Adam, Abel in Genesis 4:3 bringing sacrifices to God for himself, Noah in Genesis 8:29 bringing sacrifices to God for the family, and Job in Job 1:5 is giving sacrifices for his sons and daughters.   He is very concerned about their spiritual welfare.  Abraham in Genesis 12:8 is offering sacrifices for the family.  Then Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law is offering sacrifices as a patriarchal priest in Exodus 18:12.  So you have lots of examples prior to the Mosaic Law of heads of households or individuals who are authorized to bring sacrifices before God.

The royal high priest was a distinct priesthood that is indicated by Melchizedek.  We don’t have anything else on it in the Old Testament other than Melchizedek.  He is royalty.  He is the King priest over Salem which is later called Jerusalem.  His name Melchizedek is probably a title - King of Righteousness - and not a personal name. He is a Gentile.  So it is a priesthood that is superior to that which is restricted to only the Jews under the Mosaic Law.  

That is the Aaronic or Levitical priesthood.  So that gives us a framework for understanding these three priesthoods.  The Aaronic-Levitical priesthoods are based only on their genetic relationship to Aaron and the tribe of Levi.   There is no indication anywhere in the Scripture that they just have to be saved, that they have to be in right spiritual condition.  None of that is there.  They just have to be connected genetically to Levi and Aaron.  Melchizedek, we don’t understand what the dynamics were there.  Patriarchal relates to any individual.  Royal high priests seem to be related to someone who is regenerate and someone who is saved.

   2. We talked about the development of this idea of priesthood in the Old Testament.  After you talk about individual priesthood when God calls out Israel as a nation and He is bringing them out of Egypt at the Exodus, He says that they are to be a kingdom of priests to Him.  So the whole nation is supposed to be a kingdom of priests.  So God calls out Israel to be a priest nation.  Their role as a nation in relationship to all of the other nations is to be that intermediary, that mediator-nation between the other nations and God.  Now when did that happen?  I don’t think it is truly fulfilled until you get into the Millennial Kingdom.  You get into the Millennial Kingdom and all nations according to Isaiah 2 are going to come to the mountain of God to worship.  All nations will come to Israel to worship.  It will be the priesthood at that time, the sons of Zadok.  He is a descendent of Levi and a descendent of Aaron. It will be the Zadokite priesthood that takes care of the worship in the Millennial Temple.  It is at that time that Israel finally fulfills her role as a priest nation.

NKJ Exodus 19:6 'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

The word “holy” there means a nation set apart to the service of God.  So the whole nation was viewed as this corporate group that is set apart to the service of God.  Hosea 4:6 comes toward the end of the Old Testament period where there is the announcement of divine judgment because of their failure.

NKJ Hosea 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being priest for Me; Because you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

You see that the same principle is true today.  The reason you have such problems in Christianity is because people are ignorant of the Word.  They become more and more ignorant of the Word.  They are biblically illiterate.  They are doctrinally impoverished.  They are theologically challenged and they don’t care about it.  And pastors don’t care about it.  They are more concerned about getting more people in and being a comfortable place where people won’t feel too uncomfortable.  So they don’t talk about sin.  They don’t talk about the things that displease God.  They talk about how wonderful everybody is and let’s all have a big group hug every Sunday morning.  Everybody can go home and be warm and be filled.  So everybody is ignorant.

He will reject them from what?  “From being a priest before Me.”  So God rejects Israel from this position of priesthood because of their failure to fulfill the conditions of the Mosaic Covenant in the Old Testament.  So they don’t fulfill that until the future Millennial Kingdom when they are restored to the land.

   3. The Levitical priesthood and the Aaronic high priesthood are then established by God within this priest nation.  So you have a nation that is going to function as a priest.  Then within that nation you have one tribe that is selected and chosen that is going to function as the priest tribe for the entire nation.  This is set forth in Exodus 28.

So let’s spend a little time flipping through some chapters in the Old Testament.  I thought as I was putting this lesson together I could go really fast through this, but that would assume that a lot of people understand their Old Testaments.  Most people just don’t know the Old Testament.  They wander around and wonder who these people are and what is going on.  So let’s take a little time and work our way through this to understand what the dynamics are.

Exodus 28 is the first reference that we have to a high priest in the Old Testament but it doesn’t use the word high priest until we get over into Numbers.  All we have here is a reference to Aaron as the priest.  There is no mention of a high priest.  In fact that word “high” isn’t even used in the Old Testament.  You have the word for great priest.  It is literally great priest.  So the word for priest is the word kohen in the Hebrew.  So anytime you have a Jew who has a name that sounds like kohen, it is a form of the Hebrew word for priest.  And they probably have Levitical ancestry.  They have been able to isolate a gene, a genetic marker, today to indicate who is from the tribe of Levi.  That will be important to be able to reestablish the priesthood when they have the apostate temple during the tribulation but ultimately they will need it in the Millennial Kingdom.  Of course then you don’t need it because you have an omniscient Messiah sitting on the throne.  He will know who is who.

NKJ Exodus 28:1 "Now take Aaron your brother, and his sons with him, from among the children of Israel, that he may minister to Me as priest, Aaron and Aaron's sons: Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.

This is where God appoints a priest.  This is what we read in Hebrews 5:1.  Every priest is appointed by God.  This is where it takes place in Exodus 28.

Now that word minister as priest is the Hebrew verb kahan.  You see a priest is a kohen and he ministers as a kahan.  That is the word.  It means function as a priest so it is almost a redundant statement – the priest is going to act as a priest, function as a priest, and serve as a priest.

This is the same terminology that we have in Hebrews 5:1 that a priest is chosen from among men, specifically from the children of Israel.

Here we have four sons identified- Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, and Ithamar.  Of course we are going to see a little rebellion that takes place in the family. It is just great to watch this because Aaron is getting ready to really mess up. While Moses is up getting the law Aaron is going to lead the people into rebellion.  They fashion a golden calf and he leads them in a big orgy.  Moses is going to have to come down and discipline everybody.  Is Aaron kicked out of the priesthood?  No.  He still stays in the priesthood.

Then you have family problems.   Everybody has family problems.  He’s got two kids that are rebellious.  They will lead a rebellion and get killed.  It’s real messy when you get over into Numbers.  We will look at that in a minute.

So you have the establishment of the priesthood here.  They have specific garments that they wear.

NKJ Exodus 28:2 "And you shall make holy garments for Aaron your brother, for glory and for beauty.

NKJ Exodus 28:3 "So you shall speak to all who are gifted artisans, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments, to consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.

Note that phrase.  This is not a filling of the Spirit that is related to their spiritual life.  Remember in the book of Judges you get people like Gideon who is filled with the Spirit.  What happens?  “God, are you sure that you want me to do this? Let me put this fleece out here and see if I can figure out a way to come up with some conditions that are too hard for you to fulfill so that I don’t have to go to war against the Midianites.”  Then after he defeated the Midianites he led the nation back into idolatry.   He doesn’t come across as real spiritual.

Then you have Jeptha.  Right after he is filled with the Spirit he says, “Lord, I will sacrifice as a burnt offering whatever comes out of the front door of my house to meet me when I come home after the war.”  His daughter came out to greet him when he came home from the war.  He did unto her as he said.  That is what the Scripture says.  Now there are a lot of squeamish Christians who say that he didn’t want to kill her so he dedicated her as a perpetual virgin.  But they didn’t do that in Israel at that time.   He took her like any pagan and sacrificed her as a human sacrifice.  Really spiritual there!  He really understands what is going on.

Then you have Samson and Samson is filled with the Spirit.  He is a womanizer and a glutton and he can’t keep his vow.  The filling of the Spirit in the Old Testament doesn’t have anything to do with what we think of as spirituality in the New Testament – spiritual maturity or spiritual growth.  It had to do with the ministry of God the Holy Spirit to some sort of theocratic leader.

Now what do I mean by theocracy?  I mean the kingdom of Israel - its function, its priesthood, the role of revelation to the prophets, leadership through Moses, leadership through the judges, and leadership through the kings.  It had to do with empowering certain people who had a critical function within the bureaucracy of Israel in order to enable them to carry out their God given task.

Aholiab and Bezalel  are filled with the Spirit so they can make the furniture and the gold craftsmanship doing all the metal work and woodwork and everything inside the tabernacle - the same thing with the artisans here.

These are all of the tailors and those who will make all of the garments.

They are filled with what?  The spirit of wisdom.  This is another aspect here.  Not only do they have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit is giving them wisdom.

You ought to be thinking, “Wisdom?  Huh.  How does wisdom apply to being a tailor?  How does wisdom apply to woodworking?  How does wisdom apply to metalwork?  How does wisdom apply to being a goldsmith or a silversmith or a jeweler?”  That is because we need a little retranslation here.  The word translated wisdom is the Hebrew word hokmah.  (The “h” is a guttural.)  It is the word that is primarily translated wisdom.  It gives us and understanding of what the Jewish concept of wisdom was.  It is skill at doing something.  Here we have skill at producing physical objects.  It is an artistry so that they produce works of art in wood and garments and gold and silver have beauty and value.  It brings out the whole aesthetic aspect here that is part of the Christian life.  Wisdom is the application of your basic principles of any kind of work whether it is woodwork, carpentry, being a goldsmith or jeweler or whatever it might be.  It is being able to take those basic principles that you learn in whatever the discipline is and being able to create something of beauty, something that glorifies God, something that has tremendous artistic value to it.

There is something about aesthetics that Christians just don’t understand.  You hear folks talk about a church.  “Let’s just go put up a metal building.”  That is great but you see when God created things He didn’t create things that were just functional.  He created a world of beauty.  Aesthetics is part of our creativity as being in the image of God.  So when God is having the Jews build the tabernacle, it’s not enough to go out and build it from its basic structure.  He wants everything to be artistic and to be beautiful to reflect the aspect of man being in the image of God and a reflection of His being a creator.

So they make Aaron’s garments.

NKJ Exodus 28:3 "So you shall speak to all who are gifted artisans, whom I have filled with the spirit of wisdom, that they may make Aaron's garments, to consecrate him, that he may minister to Me as priest.

Then it goes on to describe the garments.  It is a breastplate which had 12 stones in it, one for each of the 12 tribes.  It had an ephod that was a robe that he wore over that that hung down to the mid-calf, sort of like a mini-skirt.  Then another tunic that went over that.  Then there was a turban that he wore on his head that had a gold plate that said, “Set apart to the Lord.”  This was the uniform of the high priest. On his epaulettes he had these two stones and on each side were inscribed 6 tribes of Israel - 6 on one side, 6 on the other side so that he is covered by the names of the tribes of Israel so that he goes into the tabernacle to represent them before God.  So it is all about his role as a substitute priest and a representative for the entire nation.  Then in the rest of the chapter it describes the ephod that he wears and how that should be made and the memorial stones that are on the ephod down in verse 12.  Then there is a description of the breastplate and how it was to be made - the colors and everything down in 15 and following.

Flip over to chapter 29.  We see how they are set apart and consecrated.  Once they made the uniforms, then they had to initially consecrate them.  This meant they had to be washed from head to toe.  It was a baptism of sorts.  It was a picture of complete cleansing that took place at the initial part of the priesthood.  It initiated them into the priesthood and set them apart unto God.  That was what a complete washing was a picture of.  Jesus uses that imagery in John 13 when He is washing their feet.

You remember that Peter said, “You aren’t going to get down there and wash my feet.”

And the Lord said, “If you don’t let me wash your feet, then you won’t have any part with Me in My ministry.”  He goes on to say, “All of you were cleansed.”

And Peter said, “Give me a whole bath.”

Jesus said, “No. You don’t need a whole bath.  That has already happened.  You have already been cleansed from head to toe.”

He uses the Greek word luo translated the washing here meaning a complete bath.

“You don’t need that.  You have already had that indicating you are already saved.  You got a complete cleansing at salvation.”

Every believer is completely cleansed from all sin at the instant of salvation.  Sin is no longer a factor in terms of that eternal relationship with God. There is a complete cleansing; but afterward there needs to be periodic ongoing cleansing based on the imagery of the priest.  Every time the priest would function as a priest he would go into the tabernacle or temple and he would have to go to the laver and wash his hands and he would have to wash his feet. That was a picture of the fact that we do things and go places that we shouldn’t.  We violate the law so there has to be cleansing before we can come into the presence of God and serve God.

So Jesus picks up on that imagery in John 13 saying that this issue of ongoing cleansing, partial cleansing, (He used the Greek word nipto there meaning a partial washing.) is important for ongoing service in the Christian life.  If we don’t have that then he warns Peter that “he wouldn’t have a part in My ministry.”  The word for part there isn’t the word for a role like you get a role in a play.  He isn’t talking about that.  He is talking about “you won’t have an inheritance.”  It is the word meros indicating that portion of a will that designates the inheritance share going to the survivor.  It is the same word used when the prodigal son comes to the father and says, “I want my meros.  I want my inheritance now.”

So what Jesus is saying to Peter is, “If you don’t go through this ongoing cleansing then you won’t have an inheritance share in the kingdom because everything that you are going to do is going to come out of the sin nature.”  It will all be human good and it will all get burned up at the Judgment Seat of Christ.  So there has to be ongoing cleansing.  That imagery comes right out of Exodus 29.  All of this goes back to an understanding of the appointment of the priest in the Old Testament and the setting apart of the priest in the Old Testament.   So we see from Exodus 28 that it is God who chose and appointed Aaron as a priest.

   4. The priesthood is restricted by God.  It is only for Aaron.  It is only for the descendents of Aaron.  God says that it is not for everyone.  There is a restriction there.

NKJ Numbers 18:7 "Therefore you and your sons with you shall attend to your priesthood for everything at the altar and behind the veil; and you shall serve. I give your priesthood to you as a gift for service, but the outsider who comes near shall be put to death."

Oops!  Any other priest who comes in anyone who tries to function as a priest who is not a descendent of Aaron is going to be put to death.  This happened on several occasions as we will see in the Old Testament.  God had to make it very clear that His rules were not to be violated.  Only those who were designated as priests could make atonement for sin.  Someone couldn’t go in and offer a sacrifice for just anyone.

NKJ Psalm 65:3 Iniquities prevail against me; As for our transgressions, You will provide atonement for them.

The context is talking to the Levitical priests.

NKJ Exodus 29:36 "And you shall offer a bull every day as a sin offering for atonement. You shall cleanse the altar when you make atonement for it, and you shall anoint it to sanctify it.

The instructions are directed to Aaron.  The word there for atonement is kaphar and has the idea of cleansing from sin.  Only the priests could make atonement for sin.   So what we have seen is that God appointed the priesthood.  God says that it is only going to be through Aaron and his sons.   The ultimate purpose is for atonement.  There are other purposes that we will look at in just a minute.

   5.  As the representative of the 12 tribes Aaron wore the names of the 12 tribes inscribed on his shoulders and breastplate.  The names were on his epaulettes.  The stones were on his shoulders and his breastplate.  This indicates that he is bringing all of them before the Lord.  Exodus 28:12 we have already looked at.

NKJ Exodus 28:21 "And the stones shall have the names of the sons of Israel, twelve according to their names, like the engravings of a signet, each one with its own name; they shall be according to the twelve tribes.

NKJ Exodus 28:29 "So Aaron shall bear the names of the sons of Israel on the breastplate of judgment over his heart, when he goes into the holy place, as a memorial before the LORD continually.

All of this had tremendous symbolic value indicating that he was their representative.

   6. What were his responsibilities?  What is the role of a priest?  What did a priest do?  First of all the priest was to oversee the sacrifices and the offerings at the tabernacle.  His role was to oversee all of the tabernacle and temple services.

NKJ Deuteronomy 18:5 "For the LORD your God has chosen him out of all your tribes to stand to minister in the name of the LORD, him and his sons forever.

So this was a designation to Aaron and his descendents.  A priest was also to pray for the nation - not to just bring sacrifices and offerings but to pray for the nation.

NKJ Joel 2:17 Let the priests, who minister to the LORD, Weep between the porch and the altar; Let them say, "Spare Your people, O LORD, And do not give Your heritage to reproach, That the nations should rule over them. Why should they say among the peoples, 'Where is their God?' "

This was a prayer.  They were to intercede for the people.  This is what the Lord is doing as part of His high priestly duties at the right hand of God the Father.  He is interceding for us.  So the Old Testament priest was to intercede for the nation in praying for the nation.

Further more they were to teach the Law.  They were to teach the Law to the people.  This is indicated in two verses.

NKJ Leviticus 10:11 "and that you may teach the children of Israel all the statutes which the LORD has spoken to them by the hand of Moses."

So they were the Bible teachers throughout Israel.  So they would travel.  They didn’t have their own land.  They didn’t have their own inheritance portion in the land of Israel because they were to minister to the whole nation.  They were to travel and teach the Word.

NKJ Malachi 2:7 "For the lips of a priest should keep knowledge, And people should seek the law from his mouth; For he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts.

There is an indictment of the priesthood in that chapter.  The reason for the indictment is because they weren’t teaching.  So we get the principle in Malachi 2:7. 

So he taught the Word.  He is a messenger from the Lord, but in a different way from a prophet.  A prophet basically functioned like a prosecutor who was charging the people, indicting them for failure to follow the Mosaic Law.  So the prophet’s role was directly related to making statements either positive or negative in relationship to the fulfillment of the Law.

One of the things that has really hit home to me in the last year as I have been teaching this Old Testament survey course is that in the Old Testament you look at books like Joshua, Judges, 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, and 2 Kings.  Now in the English Bible we talk about those books as being part of history.  They are part of the historical section of the Old Testament.  And that makes sense to us.  But in the Hebrew Bible there are 3 sections – the Torah (the first 5 books.), the Nebiim (the prophets) and the Kethubim (the writings).   Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings are part of the former prophets.  We think of prophecy too much in terms of foretelling the future or bringing an indictment from God against the nation because that is what happens under the latter prophets including Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, Malachi, and Zechariah. all of the 12 minor prophets are bringing indictments against Israel because they have failed to fulfill the Mosaic Law.  What do you see in Joshua?  How is Joshua a prophet?  Joshua shows how the people obeyed the law and God gave them victory over the Canaanites and blessed them.  Then what happens in Judges?  Judges is a picture of their failure to obey God and to apply the law.  The nation falls apart in complete anarchy because everyone is doing what is right in their own eyes and there is no central government. Because there is no central government there is anarchy and everything falls apart.  So you can’t have a society where you can trust people to be their own authority because it is going to fall apart.  There has to be government.  God instituted government.  Even though there are failures in government, government is a divine institution.  Even when you have flawed government such as in the Roman Empire, in Greece or in various human kingdoms; it is still the institution that God has established for the order and preservation of mankind.  Man is going to fail even under government.  Every institution is going to ultimately fail because of sin.  But the institutions when they are applied correctly do give stability to the nation.  So the priests are to pray for the nation.  They are to teach the law.  They are to be an example of personal sanctification.  They are to be an example to the others of spiritual growth and advance to spiritual maturity.

NKJ Deuteronomy 33:9 Who says of his father and mother, 'I have not seen them'; Nor did he acknowledge his brothers, Or know his own children; For they have observed Your word And kept Your covenant.

Deuteronomy 33:9 is addressed to Levi starting in verse 8.

The focus of this verse is to say that the priest who is obedient to his calling is going to put spiritual priorities above even his family.  They will be an example of obedience to the Word and keeping the covenant.

   7. The anointing of the priest is described in Exodus 29 which we looked at already and Leviticus 8 and 9.  In fact if you want to you can turn to Leviticus with me.  Leviticus 8 and 9 give us the regulation for the priesthood.  This is another account of the consecration, the setting apart of Aaron and his sons, at the initiation of their ministry.  Chapter 8 describes the consecration.  Chapter 9 describes the beginning of their ministry.  At the consecration there is not only this full bath, but there are also burnt offerings which are consecration offerings that are given in order to indicate on the atonement on their behalf.  Then their priestly ministry begins and other offerings at that time.  On the 8th day there are sin offerings, burnt offerings, peace offerings, and grain offerings.  All of the Levitical offerings are given at that time to indicate that they, Aaron and his family, are set apart as priests.  That begins the institution of the Aaronic priesthood.  

     8. The duties of the Levites are then described in Numbers 18:1-9.  I want to look at a couple of background things that happened after the initiation of Aaron.  Before we leave Leviticus 9, let’s look at chapter 10.  After all of this has taken place, after the consecration of Aaron and his family as priests, after all of this has been done and you have all of this ceremony, all of this ritual and all of these sacrifices in the burnt offerings and the grain offerings and all the other offerings and all of this goes on for over a week.  Then after all of that a rebellion takes place in his family with two of his sons, Nadab and Abihu.  We read about that in Leviticus 10.

NKJ Leviticus 10:1 Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the LORD, which He had not commanded them.

What that means by “profane fire: is that this isn’t the incense that has been authorized by God to be presented by Aaron and his family in the right way.  They are thinking that they can define a relationship with God on their own terms.  Why is it so exclusive?  Why it is that Jesus is the only way.  “We have a good way.  We have good fire.  Our matches work just as well as anybody else’s.  So why can’t we do it?”

NKJ Leviticus 10:2 So fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.

 So God has to put an end to this at the very beginning.  They died before the Lord.  I would love to see some good special effects on this.  This must have been incredible.  Some of the things that took place at the judgments of God on the rebelliousness of the Jews, you would think that you would get the lesson that got to get authority oriented pretty quickly.   But all through this period they are rebelling against the priesthood of Aaron.  They don’t like Aaron.  They don’t like Moses.  Everybody wants to do what is right in their own eyes basically.

NKJ Leviticus 10:3 And Moses said to Aaron, "This is what the LORD spoke, saying: 'By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.' " So Aaron held his peace.

They were coming before God in an inappropriate way without the proper cleansing and consecration.  The same thing happens with believers who are out of fellowship.  It is treating God as if you can come to Him and have a relationship with Him on your terms rather than His terms. So that gives a little background.  This happens early on right after the consecration of Aaron and his sons.

Then we have another rebellion a little later on as they are going through the wilderness.  This occurs before Kadesh Barnea in Numbers 16.  So turn from Leviticus to the next book, Numbers.  Excuse me, this comes after Kadesh Barnea.  That was in chapter 15. So now there is a further rebellion.  You would think that after God prohibited them from going into the land that they would get the point, but they don’t.  That is a picture of all of us.  We are all a lot more like this than we like to think.

NKJ Numbers 16:1 Now Korah the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, with Dathan and Abiram the sons of Eliab, and On the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben, took men;

So they are Levitical, but they are not Aaronic.  Only Aaron can go into the Holy of Holies and his descendents.

NKJ Numbers 16:2 and they rose up before Moses with some of the children of Israel, two hundred and fifty leaders of the congregation, representatives of the congregation, men of renown.

They lead a revolt of 250 leaders thinking that they have just as a legitimate way to get to God as anyone else’s.  “Our way is a good way.  All roads lead to God.  All paths lead to God so God is going to honor us for our sincerity.”

NKJ Numbers 16:3 They gathered together against Moses and Aaron, and said to them, "You take too much upon yourselves, for all the congregation is holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them. Why then do you exalt yourselves above the assembly of the LORD?"

I just love it.  Moses heard it and he fell on his face.  We are going to see some more fireworks from God. He warns them that God will show tomorrow morning that He is holy and who is authorized to come before Him and who is not. So he says, “Okay.  You guys want to go before God.  So take your censers and put fire in them.  Put incense in them like the earlier revolt that we read about in Leviticus 10. Come in and come before God.”  So they did that and again God judges them and wipes them all out.  As a result of that he brings judgment upon the people.  But that is not enough for God to wipe out Korah, Dathan and Abiram.   He wipes out their families.  He wipes out their tents.  He basically blots out anything that they touched.  That is described later in the chapter.  But the next day we get down to verse 41.

NKJ Numbers 16:41 On the next day all the congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron, saying, "You have killed the people of the LORD."

 What part of divine judgment don’t you understand?  People are stubborn in their sin.  That is what I like about the Scripture.  We get a “high” view of who we are and how “obedient” we are.  This is a picture of the fact that we really aren’t.

NKJ Numbers 16:42 Now it happened, when the congregation had gathered against Moses and Aaron, that they turned toward the tabernacle of meeting; and suddenly the cloud covered it, and the glory of the LORD appeared.

The wrath goes out and Moses calls upon Aaron to put a censer of fire before the altar in order to stop this plague that goes out.  Before that gets done 14,700 get killed in this particular rebellion.  But that’s not the end of it.  So you would think that they would get the point.  But it just keeps going.

So they have questioned the authority of Aaron.  It is at this point that he tells Aaron to take his staff and put it into the tent of meaning along with these other leaders who were vying for this authority.  God is going to create a miracle the next day.  Overnight the dead stick is going to produce life.  That is the picture.  God is going to bring life where there is death.  And God is going to bring life in this dead stick to indicate that Aaron in His choice.  So once again Aaron is chosen and appointed.  It is clear that this is God’s choice.  But Aaron will revolt against Moses again.  That is the reason that he is not allowed to go into the Promised Land. But God doesn’t remove the priesthood from Aaron or from his family.

Now the last point I am going to make is that the term that is used to describe Aaron as the high priest is really the term “great priest”.  The first place that is used is in Numbers 35:25, 28.  But when we come to Jesus He is the Great High Priest.  We have an added term there to indicate His superiority to all of the Old Testament great priests.

So Hebrews 5:1 talks about reminding us of the basic principle which was clear to the original recipients of this letter because they are all former Levitical priests.  Every high priest is appointed by God for men in things related to God that he may offer gifts and sacrifices for sin.  So the point that is being made is that God appoints the high priest.  And he has to have the same nature, the same makeup as those whom he represents.

Principles to Remember about God

Some principles to remember about God     Gen. 121b

1)      God is sovereign. God rules the universes and is the ultimate authority and the final authority in the universe.

2)      God rules human history. As the sovereign He is overseeing the progress of His plan in human history. He has certain things that he is working out.

3)      In the process of doing that he does it by allowing the flexibility of human volition within the framework of human history. One of the most important things that we must understand is that God in His omniscience has so structured and created reality and human history that it includes the flexibility to handle the chaos that results from our own bad decisions.

4)      Volition means that we can either be a part of God’s plan or we can be in violation of God’s plan. We can be a part of God’s plan according to God’s principles and have the blessing of participation and the production of divine good or …

5)      We can try to enact God’s plan on our own terms and in our own timing. In other words, we try to manipulate even what we know God is trying to do. We may end up trying to push it, manipulate it, speed it up, hurry it up, and as a result it produces unintended consequences that are negative, that produce self-induced misery and human good. This is what is what is picture in Genesis 27. We see this fragmentation of the chosen family. They were chosen by God, God reiterates the Abrahamic covenant to Isaac, and yet now we see the absolute fragmentation of his family.

Principles: What happens to a believer who is mired or enmesthed in the cosmic system?

Principles: What happens to a believer who is mired or enmeshed in the cosmic system?  Gen. 103b

1)      Definition of the cosmic system: This is from the Greek word KOSMOS [kosmoj] which refers to an orderly system of thinking. Analogy: The cosmic thought that is the cultural values of the community or world around us, whatever it may be. Every culture has its views about life, its views about ultimate reality; and its views about ultimate reality or God affect its values. Values are displayed in terms of laws, in terms of social institutions, in terms of marriage, family, government—all of these things flow out of one’s views of ultimate reality. This, then, develops itself out into other areas such as music, visual arts, theatre, dramatic art, etc. All that is part of the cosmic system. There is a world view that is antithetical to a biblical world view. The cosmic system is basically the thinking of Satan. It is first and foremost antagonistic to God. No matter how much God-talk there is, no matter how much people hold up their Bible, go to church, go through ritual, praise and worship for 45-minutes, it is just human works, a salve on the conscience. At the very core, though, because it is not biblical, it is antagonistic to God. Take somebody who goes to church once in every three or four weeks or every time on Sunday, and basically they have right beliefs but there is no real drive forward in their spiritual life. Is that person positive? No, they are not because they are not going anywhere. Positive means that you understand the truth and you want to know the truth and want to go forward in your spiritual life. These people say they believe the right things but it is not evident in anything going on in their life. That is because they are antagonistic to God. They are not going to come up and shake their fist in God’s face but they are not positive either. The reality of God and Bible doctrine isn’t affecting their day-to-day decision-making at all. They are just out there on the periphery. That is negative volition—a mild sort of negative volition, not like some fire-breathing atheist, but it is still antagonistic to God because it is not positive to God. The second element of cosmic thinking is that it autonomous towards man. Autonomy is a word that means self-law, man ultimately decides for himself, and it is an emphasis that says, “God, you just stay out of it, I am going to lead my own life and make my own decisions about what is right and what is wrong.” This is what is at the core of the cosmic system, therefore the cosmic system always generates hostility towards the Bible and its establishment principles. You can’t get away from it, it always generates hostility towards the truth.

2)      This antagonism to the word can be overt or subtle. Overt is a clear antagonism or rejection of the Word. Or, negative volition can be masked as religion or just a kind disregard. They might go to church but it has no impact on their thinking whatsoever. They don’t live any different from the unbeliever down the street. The unbeliever down the street may be nice, may be socially involved, may have a great personality, may give a lot to civic causes and be involved in things, but he is still operating on pure paganism. There are Christians like that, they just show up here and there and they sing songs, and it is all external. There is just this shell but they are not learning to think biblically.

3)      Negative volition is anything short of being genuinely positive. Are you driving forward in your spiritual life? Is there still a hunger in your soul to know what God says and to live for Him because of where you are heading? That is positive volition.

4)      Like Lot, the negative believer seeks to enjoy all the benefits of the present cosmic system without paying attention to God. They want to enjoy all that the culture has to offer them. There is nothing wrong with enjoying different elements of the culture. It is when that is the heart-beat of the life as opposed to doctrine that is where problems are run into.

5)      One result is that there will eventually be an internal conflict of guilt. If you are a child of God and the Holy Spirit is in you, the Holy Spirit isn’t going to let just float on down the road in carnality. He is going to constantly remind you of doctrine and the Lord is going to discipline you, according to Hebrews chapter twelve, and you are not going to get away with it.

6)      There will appear a superficial rapport with the world—that is the struggle that Lot has—and that produces a callous in the soul towards doctrine. But we are called upon as believers to live in a way that is separate from the world. This is designed to protect the believer’s soul from the subtle influences of cosmic thinking around him. It is addressed to the social life of believers. It involves marriage, business, our closest friends and confidants. 2 Corinthians 6:14, “Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship [rapport] hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an unbeliever?” There is no value in a relationship between a believer and an unbeliever. That doesn’t mean you can’t have friends that are unbelievers. You need to have some friends that are unbelievers so that you can build relationships and witness to them, but those who are you most intimate, valued friends, partners, wives, husbands, need to be believers. If you want to mess up your spiritual life, if you are single, just end up marrying an unbeliever. It is self-destructive of the spiritual life. 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Be not deceived: evil communications corrupt good morals.” This is just a standard proverb that Paul quotes. Sooner or later, if you surround yourself with people who aren’t positive, who aren’t operating on divine viewpoint, they are going to drag you down and you are going to be influenced, and your spiritual life is going to be degraded because of them.

7)      Eventually the scale of values becomes perverted. This is what happens once you start turning a blind eye to these things it begins to degrade and erode your own sense of absolutes, and compromise sets in. Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” What happens in carnality and paganism is is that the scale of values, the scale of absolutes, morality and ethics, becomes totally perverted and reversed. This is why there is the kind of reaction that Lot did when he began to plead with the men of Sodom. They stood back and said, “Look at him, he keeps acting as a judge. He’s trying to tell us what is right and what is wrong.” They become the victims of slander and ridicule, and this is what happens to many Christians today: they take a stand for the truth and that there is something called the truth.

8)      This results in a loss of respect for life, for people as people in the image of God, genuine compassion for those who hurt.

9)      When believers get involved in the cosmic system you start seeing role reversals: role reversal in sex, role reversal in marriage, role reversal in church (where they want to have women as deacons and pastors), and this is all a sign of the influence of paganism in our culture.

10)   Sexual sin no longer brings a sense of shame. Our sense of right and wrong is being calloused by the fact that we are always being exposed to this talk in the culture around us.

11)   Personal comforts become more real and valuable than truth. This is what happens so often in marriages. People aren’t really living in a marriage where they are growing together, what matters is their own personal comfort. It is just some way to feed what I want and somehow you get what you want out of this and we are going to call this a marriage. That is not a biblical marriage at all, where you have two people growing together, sharing with each other, and growing together in maturity in their relationship with the Lord.

So the Lord overthrows the cities in verse 25, and in the process what happens? Verse 26, “But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” Lot’s wife looks back, she is mired in the cosmic system. She just can’t see the value of the Lord’s grace and she wants everything back. So she turns to look one more time. She just can’t get her mental attitude out of her carnal value system. God takes her out under the sin unto death.

Genesis 19:27, the scene shifts. Abraham goes out to the place where he had stood before the Lord. Verse 28, “And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace.” There had been grace before judgment, but then there was judgment.

Grace before judgment

1)      No sin is too great for the grace of God. Even those in Sodom could have turned to the Lord up to this point. Remember, they had some common grace from the Lord in chapter fifteen after when were rescued after their defeat by the four kings from the east.

2)      God still protects the disobedient believer even when he is out of fellowship and living in the pig-pen. God is still watching over the prodigal son because he is in the family, but eventually it becomes time for the sin unto death.

3)      There is always forgiveness. If you are still alive God has a plan for your life. You can use 1 John 1:9 to get back into fellowship, but the issue then is to stay in fellowship, to grow, to mature, to start applying doctrine and get out of the pig-pen. What happens so often is people get out, take a shower and then jump right back in, and they spend most of their Christian life in this cycle where they confess and get cleansed and jump right back into the pig-pen of the world’s system, and they never advance because they are really not positive.

4)      Forgiveness doesn’t necessarily erase the consequences of an impoverished and perverted soul. If there is no change through doctrine then the soul remains impoverished and perverted and there is no happiness and there is no capacity for life.

5)      Cosmic thinking destroys the divine institutions. It destroys the family, and that is exactly what we se in the next episode in verse 30.    

Privileged Class, The Heitage of the

The Heritage of the Privileged Class

Introduction:

1.                          He who will not go through the process of learning Bible doctrine subjects himself to the hazards of living a spiritual life of conjecture, sentiment, and emotion.

2.                          Without doctrine the believer is left as a ship without a rudder to navigate the storms of life.  God has a plan for each believer but it remains unfulfilled if the believer does not make himself available to its revelation in the Bible.

3.                          The responsibility of the believer is to discover first of all that there is a plan and then have the desire to learn it.  From this knowledge there develops confidence in the plan and, finally, courage to consistently live the plan.

4.                          Every believer is a combatant in the Invisible War and with knowledge of the Word of God he is able to become a good soldier of Christ.

5.                          However, with this knowledge he becomes a target for the Dark Side and he must learn to make decisions from the solid rock foundation of doctrine in the soul.  Execution of the plan becomes the only way to emerge victorious on the spiritual battlefield.

6.                          The believer without doctrine might respond to such an analysis by asserting that one invites a lifetime of toil and trouble by the very act of growing in grace.

7.                          It is a fact that the advancing believer does become a target in the Angelic Conflict, but the grace of God and the power of His Word sustains him in all circumstances.

8.                          Along the way he enjoys motivational victories that are ever the source of assurance that God is in His heaven and that Jesus Christ controls history.

9.                          What is true of the believer without doctrine is that his life will also be filled with toil and trouble but for which he has no available solutions due to his choice to remain ignorant of biblical problem-solving devices.

10.                       All the assets necessary to be a successful combatant in the Cosmic War are issued at salvation, one each to every believer.  However, only those who exploit their assets are able to do battle with the ingenious mentality that opposes them.

11.                       Only those who have the proper credentials may successfully prosecute this fight.  Only those who utilize their unique arsenal will be declared winners.

12.                       These are the ones who emerge as the corps of believers who reap maximum blessing in both time and eternity.

13.                       In order to qualify for these rewards the believer must develop a mind-set, a fixed state of mind, an attitude of confident assurance that he is a member of a privileged class.

14.                       Progressivism promotes the human viewpoint notion that there is something wrong with having privileges that others do not have and having prosperity for which others do not qualify.

15.                       But these things are the heritage of the believer for it is God’s desire to bless us exceedingly abundantly beyond all we ask or think (Ephesians 3:20).

16.                       Depravity and poverty are not symbols of a spiritual life but the fate of those who fail to utilize its assets.

17.                       Every member of the royal family of God is among a privileged class with the potential for great happiness, blessings, and rewards although only a few pursue these benefits and even less qualify for their imputation.

18.                       Extreme arrogance exists in today’s world between the haves and the have-nots.  Each cops an attitude toward the other.  The haves project and elitist state of mind toward the less privileged while the have-nots cast an envious attitude toward the well-to-do.

19.                       The reality of the matter is that there is neither bourgeoisie nor proletariat in the family of God.  Every believer is a member of his heavenly family which possesses privileges, opportunities, assets, and responsibilities which stagger the imagination.

20.                       A believer that continues to think of himself as a common person deprives himself of the experience of exploiting the advantages imputed to him at salvation by the grace of God.

21.                       This is a tragic case of missed opportunity since all who believe in Christ are royal aristocrats, elite nobility, and are among the privileged class.

22.                       It must me recognized that there are those among us who choose to reject Christ and remain among the lower class: riffraff, hoi polloi, and canaille.

23.                       Consequently it becomes necessary to develop a glossary of terms that defines those who are among the privileged and nonpriviliged classes.

24.                       The definitions of these English words are intended as a teaching aid that distinguishes the differences between those who have believed in Christ and those who have not.

Glossary of the Privileged Class:

1.          The definitions that follow are culled from several dictionaries.  In order to give attribution for each the following abbreviations will be employed:

1.                   AD/EL: American Dictionary of the English Language. (1828)

2.                   AHD/EL: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

3.                   MWCD-11: Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th ed.

4.                   NOAD: The New Oxford American Dictionary.

5.                   OED:    Oxford English Dictionary.

6.                   WNCD-2: Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, 2d ed.

7.                   WNNCD: Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.

8.                   WNTCD-2: Webster’s New Twentieth Century Dictionary, 2d ed.

           2.        The words we are about to define are presented in order to characterize through vocabulary the persona and assets of those who by birth inherit certain advantages.

           3.        In this context we are interested in defining these things as they relate to the believer’s spiritual birth into the royal family of God.

           4.        As we move through these words and their definitions we will illustrate their application to spiritual aristocracy by quoting pertinent verses of Scripture.

                       1.                   Privileged:  Not subject to the usual rules or penalties because of some special circumstance [MWCD-11].  Having special rights (e.g., prayer), advantages (e.g., biblical problem-solving devices) or immunities (e.g., the second death, the lake of fire) [NOAD].

Romans 8:1 -   Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

                       2.                   Privilege:  A right, immunity, benefit, or advantage granted to some person, group of persons, or class, not enjoyed by others [WNTCD-2].

John 1:12 -                  As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name.

v. 13 -              who were born not of blood [ natural descent ], nor of the will of the flesh [ human good ], nor of the will of man [ human planning ], but of God.

                                             NOTE:  The word “right” is the accusative singular direct object of the noun ™xous…a, exousia: freedom of choice, right to act, ability to do something.

                       3.                   Prerogative:  The right to exercise power or privilege to the exclusion of others [WNCD-2].  The discretionary power inhering in royalty [WNNCD].

Hebrews 4:16 - Let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

                       4.                   Advantage:  Any condition, circumstance, opportunity, or means particularly favorable to success, or to any desired end.  That which is gained from superiority of state or position [WNCD-2].

1 John 3:1 -     How great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.  For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.

                       5.                   Enable:  To make able; to provide with means, opportunity, power, or authority [WNTCD-2].

                                             NOTE: The means, opportunity, power, and authority to execute the Christian way of life is found in the enablements granted in the four spiritual mechanics: (1) utilization of the two power options, (2) the function of the three spiritual skills, (3) deployment of the ten problem-solving devices, and (4) execution of the three stages of the adult spiritual life.

1 Corinthians 2:4 -                   My message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

1 Corinthians 2:5 -       so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God.

                       6.                   Empower:  To invest with legal power; to authorize. [AHD/EL].  To give someone the authority or power to do something [NOAD].

Ephesians 1:18 -                      I pray that the eyes of your kardia may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the confidence of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,

v. 19a - and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe …

                       7.                   Commission:  A formal written warrant or authority. Granting certain powers and authorizing the performance of certain duties.  Authority given to act for, or in behalf and in place of, another [WNCD-2].

2 Corinthians 5:20a -   We are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us.

Hebrews 5:1a - Every high priest taken from among men is appointed on behalf of men in things pertaining to God …

1 Peter 2:9 -     You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellences of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

                       8.                   Opportunity:  A time, juncture, or condition of things favorable to an end or purpose [OED].  A favorable juncture of circumstances.  A good chance for advancement or progress [MWCD-11].

                                             NOTE:  Logistical grace support is an excellent example of opportunity.  God’s divine provisions supply us with the necessities to accomplish the objectives of spiritual growth: advance and progress in the Christian way of life.

Matthew 6:31 - “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’

Matthew 6:32 - “For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

v. 33 -  “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

                       9.                   Resources:  A new or reserve source of supply or support.  Available means.  Means of resort in exigency.  Possibility of relief or recovery.  Applies to anything upon which one falls back [WNCD-2].

2 Peter 1:3 -     His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

v. 4 -                For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature …

                       10.                 Inheritance:  An estate derived from an ancestor to an heir by succession.  The reception of an estate by hereditary right [AD/EL].  That which is derived from an ancestor or is transmissible to an heir or to offspring [WNCD-2].

1 Peter 1:3 -     Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

v. 4 -                to obtain an inheritance [ klhronom…a, klēronomia: refers to salvation ] which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,

v. 5 -                who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

                                             NOTE:  This inheritance has a “down payment” or “pledge” which is the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:14), it is not available to the unbeliever (Ephesians 5:5), it is something about which the believer can have certain knowledge (Colossians 3:24), and it is all contingent upon the death of Christ (Hebrews 9:15).

                       11.                 Birthright:  Any right or privilege, to which a person is entitled by birth, such as an estate descendible by law to an heir.  Used in the sense of primogeniture, or the privilege of the first born, but is applicable to any right which results from descent [AD/EL].

Ephesians 1:13 -                      In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation—having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise,

v. 14 -  Who is given as a pledge [ down payment or deposit ] of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory.

                       12.                 Entitlement:  To give a legal right or claim to something [AHD/EL].

Colossians 1:12 -                     Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light.

5.           The individual who has been endowed with the above qualities, attributes, assets, and possessions may be characterized in many ways.  The English language contains many words that describe individuals who are members of a privileged class.

6.           But as we move forward we must remember that a person of privilege has inherent responsibilities toward those who do not share his estate in life or his position in society.

7.           Such a person must first of all maintain the system which allows him to prosper.  When this environment is properly maintained all those outside the privileged class are blessed by association.  This emphasizes the function of the royal priesthood.

8.           Secondly, he must seek to lead, direct, and encourage those outside the system to join him inside.  Such recruitment enlarges the number of the privileged class.  This emphasizes the function of the royal ambassadorship.

9.           Some of the words which describe the privileged class are as follows:

1.                   Aristocrat:           One believed to be superior of its kind [WNNCD].  One who has the sympathies, habits, and temper of mind common among a ruling class.  Characteristic of a ruling or privileged class [WNCD-2].  A person with the tastes, manners, beliefs, prejudices of the upper class [WNTCD‑2].  One of those who form a privileged class with regard to the government of their country; the nobles.  The term is popularly extended to include all those who by birth or fortune occupy a position distinctly above the rest of the community, and is also used figuratively of those who are superior in other respects [OED].  The highest class in certain societies, especially those holding hereditary titles or offices.  One of a group regarded as privileged or superior in a particular sphere [NOAD].  A person having the tastes, opinions, manners, and other characteristics of an upper class [AHD/EL].

                                             The aristocracy of Jesus over the angelic creation is developed by comparing the following two verses:

Hebrews 2:9 -  We so see Him who was made for a little lower than the angels, namely, Jesus, because of the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.

Hebrews 1:3 -  Jesus is the radiance of glory [ Shekinah Glory ] and the exact representation of His nature [ divine & human essences ], and upholds all things [ sustains the universe by His divine omnipotence and omniscience ] by the word of His power.  When He had made purification of sins [ all sins of the human race ], He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high.

v. 4 -                having become [ through resurrection, ascension, & session ] as much better than the angels [ superiority over all the angels combined ], as He has inherited a more excellent name than they [ as a Person & in reputation ].

Hebrews 2:11 - Both He who sanctifies [ Jesus Christ ] and those who are sanctified [ Church Age believers ] are all from one Father; for which reason He [ Jesus Christ ] is not ashamed to call them brethren [ i.e., members of the same royal family ].

1 Corinthians 6:3a -     Do you not know that we will judge angels?

From these passages we can arrive at a doctrinal rationale: If Jesus Christ is superior to the angels, if Church Age believers are considered by Him to be members of His royal family, and if we are to judge angels, then it follows, a fortiori, that with even greater reason, we are superior to the unbeliever who is yet unregenerate humanity.

Further, we have superior wealth to the unbeliever due to our possession of imputed divine operating assets at salvation, superior intellect due to the utilization of these assets to acquire divine thought which is the subject of 1 Corinthians 2, and the possession in escrow of temporal and eternal rewards.

2.               Gentleman:  A man of good breeding, kindness, courtesy, and honor; a man having worthy ideals and refinement of thought and action.  A man of good family or good social position; a man who bears a coat of arms, or whose ancestors have been freemen [WNTCD‑2].  A man of gentle birth attached to the household of the sovereign or other person of high rank and accompanied by appropriate qualities and behavior; hence, in general, a man of chivalrous instincts and fine feelings [OED].  A chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man [NOAD].  A polite, gracious, or considerate man with high standards of propriety or correct behavior [AHD/EL].

(1)         “Good breeding” would refer in our context to the spiritual birth of the believer into the royal family of God followed by his instruction in the royal family’s honor code which results in kindness: a disposition that shows interest in others, courtesy: overt expressions of respect and politeness, and honor: excellence of character based on doctrinal standards.

(2)         “Worthy ideals and refinement of thought and action” would define the believer whose viewpoint is developed on doctrinal principles and which is expressed by speech and application.

(3)         “A man of good family and social position” emphasizes the believer’s adoption into the royal family of God.  The social position held by the believer is that of an aristocrat but with an humble disposition absent snobbery.

(4)         “A man who bears a coat of arms, or whose ancestors have been freemen” implies the imputation of escrow blessings which would include upon conveyance a coat of arms, paragraph two of the sixth Nike Awards (Revelation 3:12b).  Our Ancestor in the royal family is Jesus Christ Who through His work on the cross has granted us spiritual freedom.

(5)         “A man of gentle birth attached to the household of the sovereign or other person of high rank” is another way of identifying the believer with the household of God through the baptism of the Holy Spirit.  This is positional truth often spoken of by Paul with the phrase, “in Christ,” by which we share all the attributes He possesses in His resurrected humanity: righteousness, eternal life, sonship, heirship, royalty, priesthood, election, destiny, and sanctification.  These assets are to be …

(6)         “accompanied by appropriate qualities and behavior; hence, in general, a man of chivalrous instincts and fine feelings.”  Appropriate qualities of behavior speak of the believer’s ability to follow protocol.

(7)         The plan of God functions under a system of protocol: rules that establish proper and correct relations with heads of states and their ministers [WNTCD‑2].

(8)         This definition is applied to Christian protocol as proper and correct relations for believers in their daily modus operandi and is defined as follows:

              A rigid, long-established code, prescribing complete deference to superior rank and authority, followed by strict adherence to due order of precedence, coupled with precisely correct procedure.

a.   Protocol tells us that there is a precisely correct procedure that God has provided for every part of His plan for our lives.

b.     God has a way of doing things.  His way is the right way and the only way.

c.     A right thing done in a right way is right in God's plan.

d.     Man's way of doing something is called the wrong thing, usually done in a wrong way.

e.     The phrase "precisely correct procedure" means a wrong thing done in a wrong way is wrong; a right thing done in a wrong way is wrong; a wrong thing done in a right way is wrong.

f.      Under the protocol plan of God for the Church, a right thing must be done in a right way to be right.

g.     There is always a system of order in the plan of God and there is a system of precedence.

h.     Our precedence is based on the modus operandi of the humanity of Christ in the Incarnation.

i.      Man is inclined to follow his own instincts, therefore, God's way of doing something and man's way of doing something come into conflict.

j.      This conflict is resolved by the what the Bible advises.  Therefore Bible doctrine must be number one priority in the life of the believer.

k.     The absolute criterion is not what we feel or think, but what the Bible has to say.

(9)         These “appropriate qualities and behavior” applied to a gentleman are defined as being “chivalrous instincts and fine feelings.”

(10)       These “qualities and behavior” are disclosed and evaluated in Scripture.  The protocol of a Christian gentleman can be expressed by words that define the characteristics of chivalry:

a.     Gallant: brave, intrepid, fearless, and bold.

b.     Courteous: well-bred; polite and gracious; considerate of others; respectful.

c.     Honorable: scrupulous regard to probity and rectitude.  Procured by noble deeds; worthy of respect; regarded with esteem; characterized by honesty and integrity; without hypocrisy or deceit.

d.     Generous: Originally of noble birth; gracious; magnanimous; unselfish.

e.     Heroic: A synonym for gallant.  [Implies superlative courage especially in fulfilling a high purpose against odds (Merriam-Webster Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms, 1992)].

f.      High-minded: Having or showing high ideals, principles, and feelings.

g.     Nobility: Having or showing high moral qualities or ideals; greatness of character.

(11)       Chivalry thus takes on quite a number of characteristics but it should also be defined in the context of its original use in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.  For this we turn to:

Problems with the Post-Tribulation View

Problems with the post-Tribulation view   Rev. 075b

1)      Believers are subject to the time of wrath. This would mean that church age believers, the bride of Christ, are subject to the wrath of the Lamb and the wrath of God during the Tribulation period. The term “wrath of God” is a term that is used in several passages as a technical term for the extreme judgments that come upon the earth during the Tribulation.

2)      This is not talking about divine discipline upon believers, this is talking about divine judgment on the earth, and the object is the earth dwellers, which is almost a synonymous term in Revelation for those who are unbelievers in the Tribulation.

3)      The Antichrist is to appear before Jesus Christ, but according to Titus 2:13 we are looking for the blessed hope of the appearance of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If that is preceded by anything then that is what we are to be looking for. And if the Antichrist is going to appear before Jesus Christ then we should be looking for the Antichrist so that we can be prepared for the return of Jesus Christ. The Antichrist is not going to appear until after the Rapture occurs.

4)      Populating the Millennium. There is no one left to populate the Millennium on a post-Tribulational viewpoint.

5)      The Rapture, then, is equivalent to the Second Coming, according to a post-Tribulation viewpoint; they are not distinguishable events.

Promises

Four Types of Promises RD/Kings 069b

1. Personal promises

2. National promises to Israel

3. Universal promises

4. Conditional promises

Prophecy The importance of

But prophecy is an important and vital aspect of Scripture and it covers a tremendous amount of Scripture.  28% of the Bible was prophetic when it was revealed; that means that at the time it was revealed to Jeremiah, Isaiah, Daniel, Zechariah, Haggai, it was yet in the future.  Some of that has already been fulfilled but not all of it.  28% of the Bible was prophetic when it was revealed.  15% of the Bible is still unfulfilled prophecy; that means a little less than one out of every five verses.  18% of the New Testament epistles, those epistles which were written to the Church for the Church, specifically for the Church Age believer, 18% of New Testament epistles, which is almost one out of every five verses in the New Testament, is unfulfilled prophecy

Prophecy Three views

Three views

Preterism: Most prophecy including all of and was fulfilled in AD 70.

Historicism: Most prophecy including all of and is being fulfilled in the inter-advent age, between the two comings. Thus we can point to some contemporary events as fulfillments of these prophecies.

Futurism: Most prophecy including all of and will be fulfilled in the future. We hold to dispensational futurism.

Prophecy, Why Study

Why Study Prophecy?    RD-Rev 168

28% of the Bible was prophetic when revealed.

15% of the Bible is still unfulfilled prophecy.

18% of the New Testament epistles, 1 out of every 5 verses is unfulfilled prophecy.

1 in 12 verses in the New Testament refer to the Second Coming of Christ.

1 in 10 verses in the epistles refer to the Second Coming of Christ.

60% of verses in the NT are affected by eschatology issues to be properly understood.

Prophecy; Why is it Important?

Why is Prophecy Important? RD/Matt/152

1. 27% was prophetic when it was given, about 17% is still unfulfilled, so we don’t want to throw almost 1/5th of the Bible do we?

2. Hope. Hope is central to Christian maturity; ; Hope purifies.

, “rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer;”

, “For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope.”

, “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”

Purpose of Our Divine Call

There are six purposes to the divine call:    RD/Gal/008

a) We are called into fellowship with God, 1 Corinthians 1:9. We are to have personal rapport with Him. That is what we need to be thinking about every day;

b) He calls us for freedom; Gal 5:1

c) Eternal life. Eternal life is not simply eternal existence; it is a quality, a significance to life, a depth of life. It comes only from learning doctrine. We learn it so that we can develop capacity for life. Jesus said He came to give us life, and to give it abundantly. That doesn’t just happen by being saved; that is only the starting point, 1 Timothy 6:12;

d) Spiritual growth. God saved us to grow spiritually, Ephesians 4:1—calling is to walk worthy, that is our spiritual life;

e) To suffer, 1 Peter 2:20;

f) We are called to glorify God in the angelic conflict, Ephesians 4:1.

Purpose of Tribulation

What are the Purpose of the Tribulation?   Rev. 076b

Four purposes for the Tribulation help us to understand this distinction between Israel and the church.

1)      The purpose of the Tribulation is to execute judgment on the wicked and on the rebellious nations who have both rejected Christ and rejected Israel. This is the great judgment on anti-Semitism. It is the culmination of judgments in history on unbelievers.

2)      It is there to demonstrate the inability of Satan to rule the planet. Satan wants to rule everything, he wants to be like God. To be God he has to have peace and prosperity and order, and everything has to be functioning very smoothly. But as L.S. Chafer pointed out many years ago, all of the evil and suffering and pain and death and chaos and wars, are simply testimony to the fact that Satan can’t rule his kingdom very well. He can’t bring peace in, though he is going to try.

3)      It will provide a time for millions to be saved. Most of these rejected the gospel prior to the Tribulation and now they get one last chance. They have to go through the wrath of the Tribulation but there will be millions saved.

4)      It is a time of preparation for Israel’s restoration and conversion. This is one of the most important aspects of the Tribulation, which is Jewish in its emphasis: “The time of Jacob’s trouble,” Jacob being a term used for Israel when they are operating according to the flesh and not following God.

These fourfold purposes for the Tribulation indicate that it is something that is distinctive for Israel, not the church. We must keep that distinction in mind.

Pysical Death of Jesus Christ

Jesus Christ had to die physically on the cross and that is to show that God validated His payment for our sins. His physical death was for several reasons.  RD/1 Cor. 055

1)      He had to die physically in order to demonstrate that He had victory over physical death.

2)      He had to have victory over physical death to demonstrate that God had accepted and validated His sacrifice on the cross.

3)      He had to die physically in order to get a resurrection body.

4)      He had to die physically on the cross in order to be resurrected in order to once again demonstrate that He was who He claimed to be and that the penalty for sin had been paid for on the cross.

Qualifications of a High Priest

Qualifications of a High Priest.   Heb. 040a

   1. A high priest is appointed to his place in office.  He doesn’t appoint himself.  He is appointed by someone else in authority.

   2. He is to represent man to God.  He is appointed to men in things pertaining to God.  This is the primary role of a high priest.  The primary role of a priest is to represent men to God.  The primary role of a prophet was to be a spokesman for God to man.  But, the primary role of the priest was to represent man to God.

   3. In that representation to God he offers gifts and sacrifices for sin.  That is the role of the priest.  He serves by offering gifts and sacrifices for sin.

   4. He is as a mediator, one who has compassion (literally it is moderation and objectivity) to those who are ignorant and those who are going astray.  The ignorant are those who don’t have any doctrine.   Those who are going astray are those who are off the course, are in carnality, and need to be brought back onto the path.  This is the role of the priest.  He can deal with them in compassion and objectivity. 

   5. The reason the human high priest can do this is because of his understanding of what people go through.  He has the same problems.   He has a sin nature.  The human high priest can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray because he also is subject to weakness.  The Greek word there is asthenes meaning spiritual weakness.  Because he has problems with the sin nature, he is able to come alongside and help those who are ignorant or and those who are off course.

Questions on the Cosmic System

When we study the whole issue of the cosmic system we have to answer certain questions:    RD/Rev. 134c

1.       What do we learn about ultimate reality from what a person says? In light of what they say, how do they view ultimate reality? Is ultimate reality impersonal or personal. If it is impersonal, like the “force that you have with you” in Star Wars movies, then you have ultimate reality in the universe of the impersonal, so where did personality come from?

2.       Are we just living in a world governed by impersonal forces (in which case that has tremendous implications for who man is)? So we have to understand the nature of external reality itself isn’t just mechanical processes, immaterial forces?

3.       What does that say about mankind? If there is no personality we are nothing more than a cosmic accident, just a chance collection of atoms and protoplasm, and there is not eternal, nothing distinct about man, he is just the result of inanimate forces. And that has a lot to say about responsibility, how we view volition, how we view criminality. All of these things are going to change, depending on how we see ultimate reality.

4.       What happens when a person dies? Do they just go into the ground and that is it, or is there another life afterwards?

5.       Why can we know anything? How do we know anything with certainty? This gives us the whole issue of truth. All kinds of claims can be made, but we have to be able to weigh these things and evaluate them. How do we know what truth is all about?

6.       How do we know right from wrong? This gets into values. Every system starts with values. If ultimate reality is just matter then how do we ever get to right or wrong? We can’t! It would just be personal preference, just a choice made by individual cultures. That is what has happened in our world today with multiculturalism, it is consistent with the foundation of Darwinistic origins. If we start from just matter and everything is just the product of time plus chance then right and wrong are simply terms we use to express personal preferences or cultural preferences. But if ultimate reality is God and God is holy and righteous in His very nature, then what he expresses is absolute truth and it can’t be changed, and it is going to be expressed consistently throughout His creation.

7.       What is the meaning of history? Is history just the accidental events of human decisions or is it actually going somewhere, is there some ultimate resolution? The Bible teaches that all things will be resolved in judgment by God.

So we start with these and as a Christian we begin with an understanding of God as a personal and infinite God. He is personal, and that means He is able to have relationships with people. If God is personal that has to imply that God is capable of social relationship. That involves persons.

Rapture and the Second Coming

Rapture and the Second Coming:Contrast between the RD/John/077

‎1.       At the Rapture Christ comes for His own, the church. At the Second Coming Jesus Christ comes with His own; the church accompanies Him.

‎2.       At the Rapture Christ comes in the air, in the clouds; he does not come all the way to the earth. At the Second Coming Christ comes to the earth, to the Mount of Olives.

‎3.       At the Rapture Christ claims His bride. At the Second Coming He comes with His bride.

‎4.       At the Rapture there is the translation of all believers, alive and dead. At the Second Coming there is no translation at all.

‎5.       Those who live through the Tribulation who are believers do not receive resurrection bodies at the end of the Tribulation, they still have their mortal bodies and they will marry and have children and repopulate the earth during the Millennial kingdom. It is their children who will have the opportunity to reject Christ, to reject the grace of God during the Millennium. It is those who reject salvation during the Millennium who will rebel and align themselves with Satan when he is released at the end of the Millennium for the last great revolt against God in human history.

‎6.       The Rapture is imminent. That means there are no signs that have to be fulfilled prior to the Rapture, no prophecy that has to be fulfilled; it can happen at any moment, nothing precedes it. At the Second Coming there are definite predicted signs.

‎7.       The Tribulation begins after the Rapture (not immediately after). At the Second Coming it is the Millennial kingdom that follows the Tribulation.

‎8.       The Rapture is for believers only and the Second Coming affects all mankind.

‎What Jesus is pointing out is that in order for Him to completely demonstrate what His love for the disciples means he has to leave. What we are going to see Him develop in His answer is He leaves so that he can send another comforter, the Holy Spirit, and all that comes with the Holy Spirit and all of the spiritual assets that we receive for the spiritual life in the church age is going to further develop all of these aspects of Jesus’ tremendous love for us. But it is necessary for Him to leave in order to give these greater grace gifts. That is how He answers the first question. 

Rapture, View of the

Views of the timing of the Rapture    Rev. 071b

There are four different views of the timing of the Rapture of the church.

(1) The view that we hold is the view called the pre-Tribulation Rapture. That is the view that the Rapture of the church occurs before the seven-year Tribulation begins.

(2) Another view is that there is a partial Rapture, the view that “spiritual” Christians, those who are advancing, get raptured before the Tribulation and those who are carnal at the time of Christ’s coming for the church have to go through the Tribulation period.

(3) Then there is the mid-Tribulation Rapture view, the view that all believers go through the first three and a half years and then at the mid-point of the Tribulation they are taken to be with the Lord in heaven.

(4) A variation of that view has come up in the last few years called the pre-wrath Rapture. Then there is the post-Tribulation view that all church age believers go through the Tribulation and all believers are taken to be with the Lord in the clouds at the end of the Tribulation.

When is the Rapture?    Rev. 075b

Within pre-millennialism there are different views about the Rapture. Premillennialism, amillenialism, and post-millennialism have to do with the relationship of the Second Coming to the Millennium, whereas the Rapture views have to do with the relationship of Christ’s coming for the church to the seven-year period known as the Tribulation. The pre-Tribulational Rapture view states that the Rapture will occur before the Tribulation and will include all believers who will be immediately taken to be with the Lord in the air. This is followed at some point by the seven-year Tribulation and then the Millennium.

The second view is the partial Rapture view, that spiritual Christians get raptured at the end of the church age but carnal Christians, immature Christians, have to go through the Tribulation. This view is defined as the view that only those faithful, totally dedicated Christians will be caught up, leaving carnal Christians behind to be chastened by the Tribulation.

Then we have the mid-Tribulation Rapture view in which all church age believers will be forced to endure the first three and a half years of wrath, but then when it comes to the most intense form of the Tribulation we will be removed. Not a large number of people have held this view over the years, but a new view came along about 15 years ago called the pre-wrath view. This was the idea that the wrath of God is poured out most intensely during the last quarter or so of the Tribulation, so this is a sort of three-quarter Rapture view which is similar to the mid-Tribulation view. These views all forget the fact that the wrath of the Lamb is poured out on the earth from the very beginning of the Tribulation, as we will see in Revelation chapters six and seven. So why would the bride of Christ receive the wrath of her groom just before the wedding?

The post-Tribulation Rapture view is that all believers go through the Tribulation and the Rapture occurs at the end of the Tribulation, forcing all believers to endure the entire seven-year period.

Problems with the post-Tribulation view

1)      Believers are subject to the time of wrath. This would mean that church age believers, the bride of Christ, are subject to the wrath of the Lamb and the wrath of God during the Tribulation period. The term “wrath of God” is a term that is used in several passages as a technical term for the extreme judgments that come upon the earth during the Tribulation.

2)      This is not talking about divine discipline upon believers, this is talking about divine judgment on the earth, and the object is the earth dwellers, which is almost a synonymous term in Revelation for those who are unbelievers in the Tribulation.

3)      The Antichrist is to appear before Jesus Christ, but according to Titus 2:13 we are looking for the blessed hope of the appearance of our God and Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. If that is preceded by anything then that is what we are to be looking for. And if the Antichrist is going to appear before Jesus Christ then we should be looking for the Antichrist so that we can be prepared for the return of Jesus Christ. The Antichrist is not going to appear until after the Rapture occurs.

4)      Populating the Millennium. There is no one left to populate the Millennium on a post-Tribulational viewpoint.

5)      The Rapture, then, is equivalent to the Second Coming, according to a post-Tribulation viewpoint; they are not distinguishable events.

Rational Arguments for the Existence of God

Rational Arguments for the Existence of God JG/FBC08/134

1. The Religious Argument.  God exists because men universally believe in Him.  Among all people and tribes on earth there is a concept of the divine which manifests itself in some form of worship.  Man’s religious instincts indicate the reality of a Supreme Being.

2. The Moral or Anthropological Argument.  The soul of man contains both volition and conscience, and has the ability to distinguish right from wrong.  The very existence of man’s moral nature suggests the need of a Higher Being who has set the standards for right and wrong.  Indeed, the structure of human society is based on the recognition of virtue, truth, and morality.  A material, ungoverned universe can know nothing of moral values and distinctions apart from the absolute righteousness of a Supreme Being.

3. The Ontological Argument.  Since the human mind possess the idea of a perfect and absolute Being, such a Being must exist.  Apart from the religious and moral tendencies previously considered, the existence of God is a necessary idea to the human mind.  Beyond the relative which man measures, there is the absolute that gives character or value to the relative.

4. The Teleological Argument.  The observation of the structure of the universe indicates the need for a designer.  Both microscopic and telescopic phenomena, from the structure of an atom to the configuration of galaxies, display order, design, arrangement, purpose, and adaptation that demand both a Creator and a Preserver (Col. 1:16-17).  (p. 16)

5. The Cosmological Argument.  The intuitive law of cause and effect demands the existence of God as the initial cause.  Every new thing or change must have a cause.  In no sense can the universe be its own cause.  The universe presents an overwhelming demand for belief in the existence of God (Rom. 1:20).   (p. 17)

Reason for Suffering

Reasons we go Through Suffering  RD/3 John 011

   1. The first reason is because of Adamic failure. Adam’s sin is our sin, Adam’s guilt is our guilt, and because Adam sinned the entire human race is plunged into spiritual death and many consequences occur. Therefore this suffering is a consequence of our decisions in a secondary sense, there is human responsibility for that suffering.    2. Because of individual volitional responsibility.    3. The Lord may impose some divine discipline in order to teach us some things about the Scriptures. Hebrews 12:4-7.    4. Because we are associated with someone who is involved in making bad decisions.    5. We are in the cosmic system and therefore there is a certain amount of suffering and crisis that we will go through.    6. Sometimes we go through suffering and we can’t really identify the direct cause, so there are some reasons why we suffer that aren’t always obvious. The first of these is evangelism. Sometimes people go through a crisis in order for God to get their attention for salvation, e.g. the Philippian jailer in Acts 16.    7. A second reason is so that we can learn doctrine. Psalm 119:71 NASB “It is good for me that I was afflicted, That I may learn Your statutes.”    8. Sometimes we suffer so that we can be a witness or testimony to neighbours, friends or family. 1 Timothy 1:16 NASB “Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.”    9. So that we can be a witness in the angelic conflict to demonstrate that God’s will is perfect, Ephesians 3:10 NASB “so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly {places.}”   10. So that we can comfort one another. 2 Corinthians 1:4 NASB “who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”     

Reasons for the Passover Meal

There are fourteen reasons why this must be a Passover meal   RD/John 073

1)      Matthew, Mark and Luke specifically state that this is a Passover meal. Matthew 26:2, 17-19; Mark 14:1, 12-16; Luke 22:1, 8, 13, 15.

2)      It follows the procedures and policies that are stated in the Mosaic Law in Deuteronomy 16:7. It takes place within the walls of Jerusalem despite the fact of the crushing crowds.

3)      The upper room was clearly made available to them in keeping with the Passover custom.

4)      The meal is eaten at night. Normally the Jews wouldn’t eat a major meal at night, so this, too, indicates that there was something special about this meal. Matthew 26:20; Mark 14:17; John 13:30; 1 Corinthians 11:23.

5)      In custom with the standard operating procedure of the Passover meal Jesus limited Himself to a rather small group of the twelve rather than eating with a larger group.

6)      They ate in a reclining posture. A reclining posture was reserved for special occasions.

7)      The meal followed the Levitical ritual purification procedures.

8)      Jesus broke the bread during the meal rather than at the beginning of the meal. Matthew 26:26; Mark 14:22.

9)      They drank red wine which was also a sign of a special occasion.

10)   Some of the disciples thought that Judas left to purchase items for the feast or perhaps to take money to the poor (they didn’t hear the interchange). If it was to purchase items that would indicate that he couldn’t do it the next day.

11)   Some of the disciples thought that Judas left to give money to the poor, which was another custom observed on the Passover. John 13:29.

12)   The meal ended with the singing of a hymn, which was typical of a Passover meal. They always ended by singing Psalm 118.

13)   Jesus did not return to Bethany which was outside of the Jerusalem city limits, He instead went to the Mount of Olives that night. If He had gone to Bethany He would have left the confines of Jerusalem and that is where Passover had to be held, He had to stay there.

14)   The use and interpretation of the elements in terms of the Lord’s table was in keeping with the Passover ritual.

So for these fourteen reasons it becomes clear that this meal is a Passover meal. How do we harmonise this chronologically? John 18:28 makes the statement that after Jesus is arrested and they take Him to the Praetorium to Pilate, the Jews would not enter the chambers “in order that they might not be defiled but might eat the Passover.” If they had gone into this gentile quarter that would have defiled them and they couldn’t eat the Passover. That indicates that the Jews at that point had not eaten the Passover meal yet. If they had they would not have worried about being defiled. So if this meal the night before is Passover and these Jews the next afternoon had not eaten Passover how do we put these things together? This is the chronological conundrum that we must resolve. There are several solutions that people have come up with over the years in order to try to harmonise this.

1)      That Jesus just simply eats the Passover meal early. That, however, would be impossible because the Passover lamb had to be slaughtered within the temple precincts and therefore no Passover lamb would have been slaughtered yet.

2)      Jesus and His disciples followed the calendar of the Essenes who lived down at Qumran. This would have put the Passover meal on the Qumran calendar two days earlier than the Judean calendar. But there is no indication that Jesus or His disciples had any association with the Essene community at Qumran.

3)      The Pharisees and the Sadducees operated on two different calendars. With the Pharisees the Passover would be celebrated one night and the Sadducees had a calendar that said the 14th and the 15th is the next night.

4)      The best solution is that they computed their days differently. One way to divide time is from midnight to midnight, the Gentile way, the Roman calendar way. Then the Judeans figured it from sunset to sunset, Exodus 12:18. Then there is a Galilean calendar that ran from sunrise to sunrise. This we see from Matthew 28:1 where it says the women came to the tomb late on the Sabbath “as it began to dawn toward the first {day} of the week.” So they are coming early in the morning just before dawn and it is called “late on the Sabbath.” So 5am, or what we would call Sunday, is still Saturday. Sunday didn’t begin until the sun came up. So obviously some were operating on a different calendar system. The best solution to the problem is that both of these were in operation during Jesus’ time. The Galileans and the Pharisees operated on a sunrise to sunrise calendar. It tells us that according to a Galilean calendar—and Jesus is with His disciples who are all Galileans—their day starts at sunrise, so they would eat the Passover meal legitimately based on their calendar on one night and the Judeans and the Sadducees were operating on a completely different calendar and would observe Passover the next night.

John 13:2 NASB “During supper, the devil having already put into the heart [kardia] of Judas Iscariot, {the son} of Simon, to betray Him, {Jesus,} knowing that the Father had given all things into His hands, and that He had come forth from God and was going back to God [3] got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.” So Satan is going to introduce some ideas into the thinking of Judas Iscariot and Judas accepts this as his own. This is demon influence. Jesus knows that His hour has come and Judas has already decided to betray Jesus. All of this has been set in motion prior to their coming to the meal that night. Judas has his plan and agenda, the devil has his plan and agenda, and the Lord has His plan and agenda; guess who is in control! The Lord is in control. Because He knows the plan and the purposes of God and that everything is under control He rose from supper. That is the relationship: because He knows this, because there is doctrine in His soul, because He understands the plan of God, because He understands the purposes of God, He understands that a shift has taken place because of the rejection of the people, now He is going to change from a public to a private ministry and begin to inculcate some doctrine into His disciples to prepare them for the new age.

John 13:4 NASB “got up from supper, and laid aside His garments; and taking a towel, He girded Himself.” We know that the Roman soldiers gambled for His robe. He has on a very expensive, tailor made garment. It is a seamless garment, one of the most expensive suits he could have worn at the time. By stripping down to His undergarments and just taking this towel and wrapping it about Him He is dressing now, instead of an aristocrat with this expensive garment on, as the lowest of the slaves. The rabbis would have various disciples and the disciple of a rabbi would do almost anything for the rabbi except, according to the Mishnah, was feet. This is so demeaning that the Jewish households would hire Gentile slaves to do the foot-washing. No Jew would wash the feet of another Jew. So Jesus is taking on the form and the function of a servant.

This is a portrayal not just of being a simple servant and of love for one another, it goes far beyond that. He is showing the specifics of how He is going to do this on the next day. John 13:5 NASB “Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel with which He was girded.” Then He comes to Simon Peter, probably the last one He came to, and Peter in his typical stubborn manner says: [6] “Lord, do You wash my feet?” That is, there is no reason for you to be washing my feet. [7] “Jesus answered and said to him, ‘What I do you do not realize now, but you will understand hereafter’.” Notice: “said to him” is 3rd person singular pronoun. He, Jesus, said to him, Peter. He is talking to one person; He is not talking to anybody else. The point is, “What I am doing,” present active indicative, “you do not know now,” at this immediate time. In other words, Right now you don’t understand this; it is important and you will understand it in the future.

John 13:8 NASB “Peter said to Him, ‘Never shall You wash my feet!’…” Peter is emphatic, he uses a double negative in the Greek and he intensifies that by using the word a)iwnoj which is the word for eternity: You will not ever, for all eternity, wash my feet. The Lord answers: “… Jesus answered him, ‘If [3rd class condition] I do not wash [nipto] you, you have no part with Me’.” For “wash” He uses the word nipto [niptw]. The word “part,” meros [meroj] also indicates portion of inheritance. It is doubtful that He is talking about salvation here to Peter at this point. There is a hint here. He is going to use two words for washing, nipto  and louo [louw]. luo indicates bathing, full washing, a bath; nipto can mean just a partial washing, like washing the feet or the hands. Bathing, luo, indicates salvation phase one; nipto indicates forgiveness of phase two sins, cleansing, use of 1 John 1:9. Portion would indicate inheritance in the kingdom. So Jesus is saying Peter is going to forfeit his position in the kingdom—not salvation but position in the kingdom—if He doesn’t wash him.

John 13:9 NASB “Simon Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, {then wash} not only my feet, but also my hands and my head’.” In other words, give me a bath; let’s go the whole way. Then the Lord has to straighten him out again and this is where everything comes together. [10] “Jesus said to him, ‘He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all {of you.}’” The word “bathed” is louo, perfect middle participle, meaning the one who has bathed in the past with results that go on. That is the emphasis of the perfect tense. LUO is talking about complete washing as opposed to nipto which is partial washing. So Jesus says that he who has been bathed needs only to wash to be completely clean again. Why? Because everything else has already been cleansed and now the feet need to be cleansed again because you have been out walking around and they have become dirty. “…and you [all] are clean,” plural. He was talking to Peter; now He is talking to all the disciples. And He means completely clean because He uses the adjective holos [o(loj] which means whole or complete.

The word “clean” is katharos [kaqaroj] which means to be ritually clean or purified. It used is two senses, alone and with the adjective “complete.” What this means is complete cleansing = justification, phase one salvation. When it is just used without the adjective to modify a whole it is referring to cleansing from sin, post-salvation confession, cleansing from sin. “…but not all {of you.}’” Jesus begins in verse 7 with a conversation solely to Peter, as expressed through the second person singular pronouns and verbs, but by the end of verse 10 Jesus is saying something about the entire group: that they are all completely clean but not everyone in the group is completely clean, completely clean meaning saved. At least one of them is not holos katharos, wholly clean. 

holos katharos is a designation of salvation, not a designation of simple forgiveness of sin. So the point is that this indicates that at least one person of the twelve has not been wholly cleansed, is not a believer. “He who has bathed needs only to wash his feet, but is completely clean; and you are clean, but not all {of you.}” John 13:11 NASB “For He knew the one who was betraying Him; for this reason He said, ‘Not all of you are clean’.”

In the Old Testament in Exodus 29:4 we are told about the consecration of Aaron to the priesthood. When Aaron and his sons were dedicated to the priesthood they were to be washed. “Then you shall bring Aaron and his sons to the doorway of the tent of meeting and wash them with water.” This is one of the few times in relationship to the priesthood that there is this Greek word louo used in the Septuagint. It was used of the cleansing of the priest to initiate his ministry. It was complete bathing so they used LOUO. Then when it came to his ritual cleansing every time he went into the temple, when all he did was wash his feet and his hands, they used nipto. Everything that Jesus is saying here in John 13 has to do with the complete grace provision of God. God has provided our salvation but His grace does not stop there. God knows that after salvation we are going to commit numerous sins, but the blood of Jesus Christ (1 John 1:7) continually cleanses us from our sins. That means we cannot lose our salvation.

This is what Jesus is teaching the disciples here. He is teaching them about God’s love, that He has provided everything the believer needs in life. The whole act of foot-washing here is not simply to show that we are to serve one another but that God has provided everything for forgiveness. That is why when Jesus comes back and talks about this it is not just talking about serving. John 13:14 NASB “If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet.” He is talking about the fact that the whole imagery of foot-washing is to demonstrate what took place at the laver in the Old Testament which is the application of the forgiveness of God. This the same point that Paul makes in Ephesians chapter four. We are to forgive one another just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us. Jesus is talking specifically about the fact that if we are going to love one another in the model and the pattern that is based upon what God did for us through Jesus Christ, forgiving all of our sins. And that just as God loved us in that remarkable way we are to take that and apply it in terms of other people. That is the expression of impersonal love through forgiveness whenever there is sin, and this is the example Jesus gave us. The point is that God’s grace has provided everything, nothing is dependent upon us.  

Reasons we can't be possessed

Reason we can't be possessed   Rev. 128c

In our first argument the major premise should be stated this way: Every believers is a set-apart sanctuary by the Holy Spirit for the indwelling Jesus Christ. The believer’s body is the naos. Minor premise: Unsanctified creatures—including demons and man—cannot enter into this kind of set-apart sanctuary. Conclusion: Therefore demons cannot enter into the set-apart sanctuary of the believer’s body. 1 John 4:4 NASB “…greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” So we can have great confidence that we have no basis for fear, anxiety, worry, that somehow the problems that we have in life are because we are demon possessed and we have to be delivered.

The second major argument against demon possession of believers comes out of Jesus’ discussion with the Pharisees in Matthew chapter twelve. He uses an illustration that is very helpful here. It is split between 12:28, 29 and 12:43-45. Matt 12:28 “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. [29] Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong {man?} And then he will plunder his house.” What He is talking about here is that the strong man represents demonic control and it reinforces the view that demon possession is internal demonic control of an unbeliever’s body. He expands on this in verse 43: “Now when the unclean spirit goes out of a man, it passes through waterless places seeking rest, and does not find {it.} [44] Then it says, ‘I will return to my house from which I came’; and when it comes, it finds {it} unoccupied, swept, and put in order [moral reformation]. [45] Then it goes and takes along with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there; and the last state of that man becomes worse than the first. That is the way it will also be with this evil generation.”

The third argument is in Jesus’ high-priestly prayer, John 17:15 NASB “I do not ask You to take them [believers] out of the world, but to keep them from the evil {one.}” We have a key preposition here: ek [e)k]. We live inside the world system, though we are not of the world. Jesus is praying that the Father keep [complete preservation] us from ever entering into the control of the evil. We must accept the fact that the Father is answering that particular prayer. At the very least this would include protecting believers from demon possession.

A fourth passage that reinforces the view of our protection by the Father is 1 John 5:18, 19 NASB “We know that no one who is born of God sins; but He who was born of God keeps him, and the evil one does not touch him. We know that we are of God, and that the whole world lies in {the power of} the evil one.” The clear statement by John is that the wicked one does not harm us.

A fifth argument comes from Paul in 2 Thessalonians 3:3 NASB “But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen and protect you from the evil {one.}” Here we have a different preposition. It is not the preposition ek, but it is a preposition which has the idea of being kept away from something. When it is used in combination with the word to guard or to protect it means something along the lines of so that it is not lost or damaged. So the idea here in the Greek is that the Lord is faithful and will strengthen and protect the believer from any harm or damage from the evil one. The protection is based on the Lord’s faithfulness.

The last argument for why Christians cannot be demon possessed is really an argument from silence in the sense that the Scripture doesn’t mention is as either a problem or in giving us a solution. 2 Pet 1:3, 4 “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of {the} divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” God has given us everything we need to carry out His plan and will for our lives. The minor premise is that in the epistles which are written for the edification, strengthening and instruction of the church during the church age, there is no mention of demon possession at all. The silence is deafening. If the Bible is going to tell us everything we need to know to live our spiritual life in the church age and it doesn’t mention demon possession, then what is our conclusion? It is not a problem; this is not an issue. If it were we would have been told about it.

So what should we conclude from this as believers? We are not saying that there is not demon possession in the world, or that though the Old Testament never mentions demon possession that there wasn’t demon possession in Old Testament times. What we are saying is the demon possession as it is superstitiously practised among many different Christians down through the ages is not what the Bible talks about. The emphasis in the Scriptures is not on the fact that Satan or a demon can come in and really mess up our life. We can do that by our own volition. The solution for an unbeliever is the gospel.  

Reasons why prayers are not answered

Reasons why prayers are not answered

RD/1 John/065

            Opening principles: a) Prayer is the most powerful asset in your spiritual life. It is the tool that we use many times to apply the faith-rest drill, doctrinal orientation, and various spiritual skills. Prayer in and of itself is not a spiritual skill but it is the means of implementing those spiritual skills; b) Prayer is an awesome privilege that brings us immediately into the throne room of God and we can present all of our petitions to Him; c) Prayer is a vital communication link to our heavenly Father and we don’t need to break our communication. Yet for all that very few believers are engaged in real biblical praying.

1.       Prayer isn’t answered because people are not filled with the Spirit, because they are not in fellowship with the Lord.

2.       Because our thinking is based on the arrogance of the cosmic system or worldly thinking. We base our requests on human viewpoint concepts. E.g. Job 35:12, 13; James 4:2, 3.

3.       Because we fail the test of the faith-rest drill. Mark 11:24 NASB “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be {granted} you.”

4.       When a husband as a Christian is not fulfilling his responsibility. 1 Pet 3:7 NASB “You husbands in the same way, live with {your wives} in an understanding way, as with someone weaker, since she is a woman; and show her honor as a fellow heir of the grace of life, so that your prayers will not be hindered.”

Red Heifer Offering

Red Heifer Offering  RD/Heb/145

Let’s turn back to the Old Testament in Numbers 19 – Numbers 19.  Again this is a sacrifice that reinforces the teaching of a blood sacrifice being necessary in order to provide ritual cleansing for the people so that they can come into the presence of God.  It doesn’t mean that they’re saved.  It doesn’t mean that they’re not saved.  It is ritual.  It’s related to the formal worship of God within the tabernacle in the Old Testament.  Now Numbers 19 describes the ritual that occurred with the purification of what we call the red heifer offering.

Now last time we looked at the passage in the Scriptures related to the red heifer.  I’m just going to summarize that again, bring out a couple of other points.  It’s a unique and rare sacrifice, like I said only 9 (maybe 7) in all of history.  It has elements of a sacrifice; but its primary purpose was for purification after serious sin and in several cases we know it involved death or it involved the ceremonial or ritual defilement of all of the people. One reason it’s unique is because the animal has to fit a certain color – red heifer complete - no other color of hair.  It has to be solid red.  According to the Mishnah if there were two white hairs or two black hairs it was disqualified.     RD/Heb/146b

A heifer is a young cow not quite three years of age that has not yet had a calf – a young cow that has not yet had a calf.  The red heifer was to be examined to make sure that she was without spot or blemish and then it was to be slaughtered and burned outside by the gate – not slaughtered at the bronze altar, but outside by the gate.  So this is different than any of the other sacrifices.  The red heifer offering would be slaughtered and completely burned.  Everything was to be disemboweled and have the intestines and everything cleaned and some of the organs used for different purposes.  But everything was to be completely burned and then the ashes were going to be mixed with spring water and this liquid made from the ashes of the red heifer would then be used in a purification ceremony.

So what in the world is this all about?  Well, to understand that we have to look at the context in Numbers beginning in Numbers 13 and 14.  So we’re just going to take a quick review of what happens in these chapters.  In Numbers 13 we have the story of the spies who were sent into the land of Canaan.  Remember they are told that they’re to see how they are going to have victory over the Canaanites.  They’re not sent into see if they are going to have victory over the Canaanites and they go into Canaan and they see the fortified cities and they see giants in the land.  They’re overwhelmed by the size. They see the numbers of the people are large.

They come back and 10 of the 12 spies said, “There’s no way we can do this.”

The other two said, “Well, God didn’t tell us to see if we could do it. God said to go check it out and do a recon because He has already given it to us.”

Because the people followed the ten spies that had no faith rather than Joshua and Caleb who did trust God, then that whole generation was disciplined.  They were not going to be allowed to go into the land.  They would have to wander in the wilderness for the next 40 years until that generation died and their children came to maturity.  They could then enter into the land.

So chapters 13 and chapter 14 deal with the disobedience of the nation.  At the end of chapter 14 there is a - God announces the judgment on this generation and that they would all die before they entered the land.  What we see here is a major emphasis on death in the next few chapters; but some of them don’t believe what God says.  So, they try to go into battle in their own strength in verses 39 to 45 and they are soundly defeated.

Then we come to chapter 16 and there is the rebellion of Korah who is a Levite but he associates with two non-Levites, Dathan and Abiram.  They are the sons of Eliab and on the son of Peleth, sons of Reuben.  So they are Reubenites.  They are not Levites, they are not priests.  They engaged in a conspiracy and rebellion against Moses and Aaron. There are about 250 leaders of the congregation that are associated with them.  So there is a challenge that they bring to the leadership of Moses and Aaron.  Moses handles them with a tremendous amount of grace even though he is extremely angry with them.  He tells them that they are to come back the next day and bring their censers with fire and that God is going to show who is right.

As we go through the episode, what happens is that these 250 leaders and the key leaders, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram and their families are all told to stand outside their tents.  Everybody else has to stand back and God is going to judge them.  Moses says it is going to be done in such a way that it’s clear that “It’s not me. It’s God.  And the earth is going to open up and swallow them.”  That’s exactly what happened at that instant.  God causes an earthquake and swallows up Dathan, Abiram, Korah, the families and the 250 leaders are all killed by God at that instant.  So there is death.

Then the people come back the next day.  You would think having had that empirical episode with God’s justice that the next day they would be a little bit humble.  But they’re not.  They come back complaining against Moses and Aaron the next day.  See when you’re in a position of leadership and you have to deal with arrogant people, that’s all you have to put up with - is complaining.  And they’re never justified. It’s just complaint after complaint.

So they come back the next day complaining against Moses and Aaron saying, “It’s your fault.  You killed all those people and we want justice.”

So then God tells Moses that He is going to destroy the entire congregation in verse 45.   Moses tells Aaron to go take a censer, put fire in and put that in the Tabernacle to make atonement for the people because God is sending a plague among them.  And 14,700 people are killed that day so that a little more than 15,000 are killed in the whole episode.  So again we have a tremendous amount of death that takes place.

Then chapter 17 we have an episode where God is going to demonstrate that Aaron is the high priest that He has chosen and that they are to only allow Aaron to serve as the high priest.  This is the episode with Aaron’s rod that is going to sprout the almond leaves and almond blossoms and almonds.  So this takes place.  Somebody from each of the tribes each put their staffs into the Tabernacle and the next morning they get up and Aaron’s rod has budded.  So what God is going to show is that only His man Aaron and his descendents can serve as the high priest.

Chapter 18 describes the duties of the high priest and the Levites and there is a warning that if anybody else serves as a priest, then God will take their life.  They will die.  So you have this whole thing of death that has gone on – death and death and death.  All these people will die so the nation is not cleansed.  They are now ceremonially impure because they have touched these dead bodies.

I’m going to skip passed chapter 19.  Verses 1-10 describe the ritual of the red heifer offering and verse 11 immediately following it says:

NKJ Numbers 19:11 ' He who touches the dead body of anyone shall be unclean seven days.

NKJ Numbers 19:12 'He shall purify himself with the water

That’s the water that’s made from the ashes of the red heifer.

on the third day and on the seventh day; then he will be clean. But if he does not purify himself on the third day and on the seventh day, he will not be clean.

Now he doesn’t just jump from the description of the ritual with the red heifer offering (verses 1-10) to a totally unrelated subject.  Up to chapter 19 we have all this discipline and death that’s occurred.  So many have died that the people are all ceremonially unclean because they have touched these dead bodies.  So there has to be a purification for the whole nation.  So this makes this a unique sacrifice to purify the Tabernacle and to purify the people within this context of death.  So it’s a unique sacrifice.  It has elements of a sacrifice, but it’s not slaughtered at the bronze altar.  It’s slaughtered outside the camp and the thrust is purification.

The cow was to be unblemished and not have had a yoke put on her and no defect according to 19:2.    It’s not stated who actually sacrifices the heifer, but  the blood is brought to Eleazar in verse 3 who then takes the blood with his finger and sprinkles the blood 7 times directly in front of the tabernacle of meeting in order to purify it.  Then the red heifer is completely burned – the hide, the flesh, the blood, the refuse.  19:5-6 describes this.  Then cedar wood, hyssop and scarlet are burned with it.  Now the only other time you have cedar, hyssop and scarlet material mentioned is in the purification in the non-sacrificial rite for the lepers.  So this shows that this is a purification ceremony.

Following that the priest would then wash his clothes and bathe completely in water.  Then the priest was considered to be unclean until evening according to verse 7.

In verse 8 another priest who was clean would take the high priest’s clothes and burn them completely.  Then another unnamed man would come up who was clean that is sanctified in terms of tabernacle worship who would gather up the ashes of the heifer and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place and mix them with water for the purification ceremony.

So again the red heifer ceremony shows God’s provision to cleanse the people of sin and anything related to it and anything that causes that breach of fellowship with God.  God provides the complete solution.

There is recognition that this actually does accomplish something.  So Hebrews 9:13 the writer says:

NKJ Hebrews 9:13 For if

If and it did.

the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean,

That is the ceremonially unclean, those who could not approach God in worship in the Tabernacle.

sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh,

It would cleanse or purify them or set them apart for the purification of the flesh.  It’s just external.  It just has to do with ritual.  Let me finish this thought and we’ll come back again and look at this next time in verse 14.

NKJ Hebrews 9:14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the

This is what is called an a fortiori argument or an argument from the lesser to the greater.  In Hebrew it is called cal lehomer argument.  What it argues is that if this lesser situation is true, then how much greater the other will be - how much more this other will be.  If A is true, how much more then will B be true?  So if the blood of bulls and goats had some limited value in cleansing, how much more shall the blood of Christ the death of Christ who through the:

eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

So we’ll get into that the next time to see how this cleansing of the conscience from dead works works and then move into the 15th verse really starts to get interesting in relation to His role as mediator of the New Covenant and paying the price of sin, the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant.

Redemption Pictures in the Old Testament

Redemption Pictures from the Old Testament Rev.109b

The first picture we have seen is the picture of the exodus, the picture of redemption. Exodus 6:6; 15:13 emphasize this dimension of the exodus event. “I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments…. In Your lovingkindness You have led the people whom You have redeemed; In Your strength You have guided {them} to Your holy habitation.” By this time it had already been accomplished. God is the one who paid the price and freed the people from their slavery in Egypt. He did this through the sacrifice of the Passover lamb. We see this illustrated in a number of passages in the Old Testament such as Deuteronomy 7:8 NASB “but because the LORD loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers, the LORD brought you out by a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt…. [9:26] I prayed to the LORD and said, ‘O Lord GOD, do not destroy Your people, even Your inheritance, whom You have redeemed through Your greatness, whom You have brought out of Egypt with a mighty hand… [15:15] You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you; therefore I command you this today…. [21:8] Forgive Your people Israel whom You have redeemed, O LORD, and do not place the guilt of innocent blood in the midst of Your people Israel... [24:18] But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt, and that the LORD your God redeemed you from there.”

The picture here for the church age believer is that we are born slaves to sin, dead in trespasses and sins. We only have one option and that is to operate on the basis of our sin nature. Every person can produce good deeds but they have no spiritual value; they have no value as far as God is concerned. But just as God freed the Jews from slavery in Egypt so Jesus Christ has paid the redemption price to free us from slavery to the sin nature.

The second great illustration that comes out of the Old Testament is that of the goel, the kinsman redeemer. This is the idea that if someone, for example, in a marriage where the husband dies and the wife was left without resources, then the brother of the dead husband could come along and take her as his wife and protect her and to pay whatever debts there were. If there was a brother who was unmarried then he would be the kinsman redeemer. The picture of this is that the one who redeems mankind must be a kinsman, a full, true human being. This is the picture that is given from the book of Ruth. So the two elements that we have in the picture of redemption from the Old Testament is first of all the picture of the payment of a price, freeing from slavery of sin; and secondly, that it must be done by a kinsman redeemer. This is exactly what we see in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Redemption Terminology

Redemption Terminology         Rev. 109b

In the Old Testament there are two key words that are used to talk about redemption. The first is the Hebrew word padah which refers to the payment of a price to free something from some state, such as slavery, or death or destruction. It always emphasises the payment of a price. Whenever we think of the word redemption we need to think of paying a price. It is a financial term at its core. We find this word used several times in the book of Exodus, primarily as it goes back to the exodus event itself. There are two key events in the Old Testament that provide a picture for understanding redemption. The first is the redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt. It was pictured in the Passover and was rehearsed in the Passover meal which comes over into the Lord’s table where the focal point is the completion of that redemptive work of Christ on the cross. The second picture is the picture of the kinsman redeemer, pictured in the book of Ruth. We find the word padah is passages such as Exodus 13:13 NASB “But every first offspring of a donkey you shall redeem with a lamb, but if you do not redeem {it,} then you shall break its neck; and every firstborn of man among your sons you shall redeem.” In other words, there was a payment price, a recognition that when the firstborn of an animal came it was a gift from God. So a redemption price, a sacrifice, was given in recognition of the fact that God had provided this. [15] “It came about, when Pharaoh was stubborn about letting us go, that the LORD killed every firstborn in the land of Egypt, both the firstborn of man and the firstborn of beast. Therefore, I sacrifice to the LORD the males, the first offspring of every womb, but every firstborn of my sons I redeem.” In a family when the firstborn son came a payment price was taken to the tabernacle in recognition of the fact that God had not only provided the firstborn son but also in memory of the fact of what had happened at the exodus: that the firstborn males were taken unless there was a blood covering on the door. All of this has imagery that relates to the fact that Jesus Christ is referred to as the firstborn, the pre-eminent Son of God.

The second word found in the Old Testament that is related to redemption is the word ga’al (verb); goel (noun). The reason for bring in the noun is that it is significant in relationship to the book of Ruth and the concept of the kinsman redeemer. The verb has the primary meaning of paying a price. The noun emphasizes a kinsman redeemer, and the idea there is often protection. The goel emphasizes the responsibility of blood relatives to provide for and to protect blood relatives. So there is a development of the concept from paying a price to protecting those for whom one is responsible. The first place we see this word used in the Old Testament is in Genesis 48:15, 16 when Jacob is blessing Joseph’s sons: NASB “He blessed Joseph, and said, “The God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, The God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the angel who has redeemed me from all evil, Bless the lads; And may my name live on in them, And the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac; And may they grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth.” The emphasis there is not so much on the payment of a price but on the fact that it is the angel of the Lord who protected Jacob through his various travels. The next place the word is used is in Exodus 6:6 NASB “Say, therefore, to the sons of Israel, ‘I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from their bondage. I will also redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great judgments.’” There we have an emphasis on the paying of a price. It is used as an expansion of the phrase “I will rescue/deliver you from their bondage.” The word there “rescue” is a hiphil form of the verb natsah, meaning to snatch away, to deliver from enemies or trouble. How is that rescue done? It is done through the payment of a price. That payment of a price is pictured in the exodus event by taking the lamb that was without spot or blemish and by sacrificing that lamb, and the blood of the lamb was spread on the door posts of the house. It foreshadowed the work of Christ on the cross.

That is the imagery that we get when we come to the New Testament and we hear that Jesus is the one who redeemed us by means of His blood. There are eight different Greek words in the New Testament that are used for redemption and they all come back to this same root idea of the payment of a price. Note that at their root they all have the syllable lu, and this comes from a root Greek verb LUO [luw], meaning to release. So the basic idea here is to release something by the payment of a price.

The first word is ANTILUTRON [antilutron]. This has the idea of substituting money, the payment for the freedom of a slave or a prisoner. Usually this is translated “ransom” and it has the idea of purchasing freedom from slavery. 1 Timothy 2:6 NASB “who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony {given} at the proper time.” This is used with the preposition HUPER [u(per] indicating the payment of a price for someone in substitution for someone.

APOLUTROSIS [a)polutrwsij] means deliverance procured by the payment of a ransom, to release a slave upon receipt of a ransom. Used in Romans 3:24; 8:23; 1 Corinthians 1:30; Ephesians 1:7, 14; 4:30.

LUTRON [lutron], the noun, the root, and it has the idea of the payment of a ransom in order to set free, to let someone loose. The verb that is built on LUTRON is LUTROO [lutrow] which means to pay the ransom price. In the middle voice, the way it is used in 1 Peter 1:17-19, it means to redeem.

LUTROSIS [lutrwsij] means redemption, deliverance or freedom. When we are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb we are given true freedom. The only basis for true freedom in life starts at the cross.

LUTROTES [lutrwthj] means a redeemer, the deliverer, the one who pays for the freedom of the nation. Acts 7:35 refers to Moses as the redeemer of Israel.

All of these six that we have seen so far are built off the same root word for redemption. The last two that we will look at come off another word based on the noun AGORA [a)gora] meaning the market place, to purchase something or to buy something in the market place. It is used 31 times in the New Testament. Christ paid the price to purchase those who were slaves to sin. 1 Corinthians 6:20; 7:23.

EXAGORAZO [e)cagorazw] – ex means out of, so it means to purchase something out from the slave market, to completely, totally liberate a slave. The price is completely and totally paid. This means that nothing can be added to the price.

References ot Demons in NT

References to demons in the New Testament  Rev. 127c

There are three general statements in the New Testament about casting out demons. These happened when Jesus was with the crowds and many people came with diseases, evil spirits, etc. for healing. Matthew 4:24 NASB “…they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.” Matthew 8:16 NASB “When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill.” Mark 1:19-34 NASB “And immediately after they came out of the synagogue, they came into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was lying sick with a fever; and immediately they spoke to Jesus about her. And He came to her and raised her up, taking her by the hand, and the fever left her, and she waited on them. When evening came, after the sun had set, they {began} bringing to Him all who were ill and those who were demon-possessed. And the whole city had gathered at the door. And He healed many who were ill with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and He was not permitting the demons to speak, because they knew who He was.” Luke 4:38-41 NASB “Then He got up and {left} the synagogue, and entered Simon’s home. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her. And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her; and she immediately got up and waited on them. While the sun was setting, all those who had any {who were} sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, ‘You are the Son of God!’ But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ.” These are parallel passages talking about the same event. The third general passage is in Luke 7:21 NASB “At that very time He cured many {people} of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits; and He gave sight to many {who were} blind.” So we know that even though there are only eight specific instances described in Scripture there were others, and these people came to Him and he cast out the demons.

When we look at those eight specific events we have a situation of a man in a synagogue who comes and he has an unclean spirit, i.e. a synonym for a demon. Mark 1:23-28; Luke 4:33-37. Then there is the episode of the Gadarene demoniac. Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-20; Luke 8:26-40. Third, the Canaanite woman’s daughter mentioned in Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30. Then there is a boy who when possessed falls into a fire. This is an important episode. He is a young boy. Then there is a mute boy who has seizures. So we see that in some cases demon possession causes seizures, deafness or muteness, but these are not necessary signs of demon possession on the one hand, neither should demon possession be the first thing we look for when someone has a disease, is mute or deaf or has seizures. It just may or may not be a symptom of that. There is a blind and mute man mentioned in Matthew 12:22; Luke 11:14. There is a woman who is bound by Satan. It doesn’t actually say she was demon possessed. This is mentioned in Luke 13:10-21. There is a mute demon possessed man mention in Matthew 9:32-34. This is it, these eight specific references and we have to figure out everything that we know about demon possession and demonic activity and deliverance from demons from these eight passages.

We live in a world today when people don’t want to be specific about doctrine, they want to be very general about doctrine. There has been a movement for at least 30-40 years among biblical scholars to say that certain terms that have been traditionally taken as technical terms are not really technical terms and we are just reading too much into them. But we disagree with that and believe that these terms which are used with various other synonyms are demonstrable as technical terms.

There is another group of passages that references demons and this is instructions and incidents related to the disciples. The first in Matthew 10:1-16 where Jesus is giving instruction to the disciples. This is parallel to Mark 3:13-19; Luke 9:1; Mark 6:7-13. The disciples go out and they cast out demons, it is part of the kingdom announcement ministry that is so important to understand in the first part of Jesus’ ministry. He came announcing that he was the Messiah and that the kingdom of God was at hand. That announcement caused the stir of demonic activity in opposition to His particular ministry and to keep that from happening. The whole assault goes back to understanding what was happening in rhe prophecy in Genesis 3:15 concerning the seed of the woman. The Messiah was to gain victory over Satan, so for Him to appear on the planet and to be moving around generated this opposition because they were trying to prevent Him from carrying out this prophecy of gaining a permanent victory over Satan.

The Gadarene demoniac, Mark 5. It is important to note that this was in a Gentile area. Mark 5:1 NASB “They came to the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gerasenes. [2] When He got out of the boat, immediately a man from the tombs with an unclean spirit met Him.” In none of the accounts related to this individual or when there are two of them is Jesus seeking out the demoniac. The demoniac is coming to Him, in fact running to Him expecting something horrible to happen. [3] and he had his dwelling among the tombs…” There seems to be a preoccupation with the dead among those who are involved in demonism but that is not always true. This man comes seeking Jesus but it is so important to understand that he doesn’t come seeking deliverance. He is the only demoniac who approaches Jesus in all of the demon possession accounts. They others are brought to Jesus to be delivered. This one doesn’t come to be delivered, in fact he comes to implore Jesus to not torment him. “… And no one was able to bind him anymore, even with a chain; [4] because he had often been bound with shackles and chains, and the chains had been torn apart by him and the shackles broken in pieces, and no one was strong enough to subdue him. [5] Constantly, night and day, he was screaming among the tombs and in the mountains, and gashing himself with stones.” There are a lot of negative things that happened but this is not prescriptive written material, this is just what occurred in the instance.

Mark 5:6 NASB “Seeing Jesus from a distance, he ran up and bowed down before Him.” This is the same Greek word used for worship. The demons have to worship God because God is still God, they know God exists, and they understand who the authority in the universe is. Notice that it is the demon who is in control, this isn’t the volition of the individual man. [6] “and shouting with a loud voice, he said, ‘What business do we have with each other, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God, do not torment me!’” This is the demon speaking, not the man. The man is under the control of the demon and the demon understands who Jesus is and understands that He is the Son of God. He is not coming for deliverance, he is coming because when Jesus establishes the kingdom, what is going to happen to the demon? If we skip ahead to Revelation 20 we realise that they are taken out of any influence in the world and just like Satan they are bound. He is expecting Jesus to bind him and send him to torments at this time.

Mark 5:8 NASB “For He had been saying to him, ‘Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!’” We have to understand that there is a lot of debate about what these terms mean. The key term that is used for demon possession is the present participle daimonizomai [daimonizomai]. It is a passive participle, the subject receives the action, and it literally means to be acted upon by a demon. In all of these passages the word daimonizomai is juxtaposed in synonymous context with the next phrase echodaimonion, which means to have a demon. The terminology that is used when it talks about the demon in him is that he is inhabited by a demon, the demon is in him. Jesus talks about casting the demon out, exerchomai [e)cerxomai]—ek means to come out, to go out, to proceed out. When that preposition is added it always means out of. It is the terminology of in and out, the demon has to come out of the person. Then at the end of this story Jesus is going to send the demons into the swine—eiserchomai [e)iserxomai].

Mark 5:9 NASB “And He was asking him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said to Him, ‘My name is Legion; for we are many’.” Jesus is making a point here, illustrating that many more than one demon could possess or internally inhabit an individual. [12] “{The demons} implored Him, saying, ‘Send us into the swine so that we may enter them’.” Notice the terminology: “into.” That tells us that the meaning of this word demon possession is not just being acted upon by a demon. There is such a thing as demon influence but we have been under demon influence from the day we were born.

Can a believer be demon possessed? Consider the sufficiency of God’s grace. 2 Peter 1:3, 4 NASB “seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of {the} divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.” The principle here is that He has given to us all things pertaining to our spiritual life, everything that we need. If the epistles never mention demon possession, never mentions it as a problem, our conclusion is that it is not a problem. If demon possession occurs in this age among unbelievers the solution for them is the solution for every other unbeliever, and that is the gospel. The solution is to give that person the gospel and if they are positive they will respond and if they become a believer the demon will be forced to leave. 

Relationship between the Church and the New Covenant

The relationship between the church and the New Covenant and that’s been expressed several ways in the history of dispensational theology.    Heb 114b

One view is that there are two New Covenants – one with the church and one with Israel.   Chafer taught that; I think Scofield had that; several others have held that view.  I don’t think that’s right.  There is no place in the New Testament that specifically states that the church is a covenant partner with the New Covenant.

The second view was that the church participates in the New Covenant only by way of application.  This was Darby’s view.  The New Covenant with Israel hasn’t begun though it has been that the sacrifice that it establishes has taken place.  I wrestle with the right verbiage to use here.  The covenant is cut to use the Old Testament term.  The covenant is cut on the cross.  The sacrifice that makes it possible is what happens on the cross, but it isn’t put into effect until the Second Coming.

The third view was that the church has some part in the covenant.   A number good dispensationalists have taken this view.  They try to attach our role soteriologically, just within the realm of soteriology.  I would say the second view is probably the closest view.  I have modified it a little bit.  The church participates because of our position in Christ.

Then the fourth view is the progressive dispensational view that it was inaugurated on Pentecost but it’s not fully put into effect. The key word you will hear is already-not-yet.  We are already in the kingdom but not-yet fully here.  Or it is progressively coming into existence and so it’s just the gradual thing.  Already-not-yet terminology really comes out of a theologian from Fuller Seminary in the 50’s and early 60’s named George Eldon Ladd.  Ladd was also a post-tribulationist, but that terminology got picked up by a lot of charismatics and the Vineyard Movement because if we are living in some form of the kingdom now and the New Covenant is actually already here and the New Covenant is going to have these expressions of the Holy Spirit and your old men dreaming dreams and your young men seeing visions and all of that in Joel 2, then we need to see that today.  That’s what they were doing.

I remember pigeon holing one of the architects of progressive dispensationalism in a stacks of the library of Dallas Seminary in 1988 and saying, “Can you give me a clear theological exegetical reason why progressive dispensationalism isn’t going to end up validating signs and wonders in this age because of the way you handle Joel 2 and Acts 2?”

The answer was basically, “Well that’s not really a legitimate application.”

But then there was a guy who came out of Moody who was a progressive dispensationalist and he also argued that we ought to be seeing signs and wonders like that today.  You can’t escape the implication.  If we are already in the kingdom and we already have some form of the New Covenant, then we ought to be having these miraculous manifestations of the Holy Spirit that are descried in Joel 2 and these other passages.  But we’re not!.  That’s just similarities.  That’s why understanding that this is that.  This is what the prophet said in Joel 2 is so important.  How you understand that phrase…how that phrase is understood in relationship to the Church Age and the New Covenant basically is a watershed interpretation.  It changes how you understand the church, how you understand the Holy Spirit, charismatic issues.  All these things are related.  Just in one little phrase, how you take that can be taken so differently.

Respect

Respect   RD/James/023

The greater our respect for God the less we are willing to disappoint God. The only way we develop respect for God is by learning His Word and all that He has done for us. So what are the characteristics?

1)      It is responding. This is the fear and awe as a responding love. God initiates; we respond. That is the corresponding act on our part. It is based on a continuous and deepening understanding of all that God has done for us, both in terms of our salvation and spiritual life. The more we know, the more we respond.

2)      There is deference. This means that we submit to His judgments, to the revelation of His will in terms of divine viewpoint, and to the mandates of Scripture. When there is conflict between our thinking and God’s thinking we defer to Him, we submit to His judgment.

3)      There is admiration. We come to know what Christ has done for us and we become awed by the complexity and the wonder of God’s magnificent plan. We admire Him more and more because of all that He has done and accomplished on our behalf.

4)      Honor. In response to His humility we admire Him and we honor Him. We seek to bestow glory on God who has performed so much on our behalf.

5)      Esteem. Esteem is defined as elevating God to a high level of prestige and priority in our life. He becomes the priority in our life. We begin to change the way we do things, the way we spend our time, the way we spend our money, how we use our talents. We begin to transform them so that the priority becomes God and because we esteem Him so highly that we are going to use our time, our talents, and our treasure on His behalf.

6)      Consideration. We give Him first consideration in all that we do. Consideration includes the idea of careful, thoughtful concern and deliberation based on God’s desires for our life. This is what the Bible means by meditation. Meditation means that you don’t just think about doctrine when you come to Bible class. It means when you go home, when you are driving places, when you are at home and you take time to study and reflect over your notes. How do these things apply to me? It is focussing thinking, letting these ideas and doctrines sift through your mind, renovating your thinking.

7)      Partiality. This is the idea that you are partial to God. It indicates a special fondness or bias in favour of the object of personal love. Therefore God’s plan is always given preference in our lives.

Think about this in relationship to your spouse. If you are a man you need to think about your love for your wife in terms of these characteristics—initiating, aggressive, humble, intense, steadfast, loyal, consecrated and set apart to her alone, and dedicated to that task of loving her. If you are a wife your love is responding. It includes deference, admiration, honor, esteem, consideration, and partiality.

Responsibiblity of the Pastor-Teacher

The Responsibility of the Pastor-Teacher  RD/1 Cor 025

1)      The pastor-teacher’s responsibility is to lead the congregation and he does so primarily through the teaching of doctrine, through the Word of God.  

2)      The pastor-teacher sets certain policies, goals, and the agenda for the congregation. The deacons’ responsibility is to carry out those policies and to implement them. But they are also accountable to the congregation, not in any extreme way, but remember, nobody is not accountable, nobody is autonomous, nobody is outside of somebody’s authority. Even the pastor is under some sort of accountability.

3)      The pastor is a servant of Christ. When a church calls a pastor it has to look at the pastor not as the employee of the church but as the servant of Christ, so He is under Christ’s authority. When a church pays a pastor it is not to be looked on in the same way you look on your pay check. A pastor is supported by a congregation so that he can carry out the work that Christ has for him to do. That is the difference. However, this does not mean that he is not accountable to a local congregation.

4)      A pastor-teacher is going to be accountable to a local congregation on the basis of the constitution of that local church. There are also guidelines listed in passages such as Titus 1, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, which define what it means for a pastor to live a life that is above reproach.

5)       The pastor’s responsibility is to study and teach, and this is what comes out in the next clause in 4:1: “stewards of the mysteries of God.” The word translated “steward” is from the Greek word OIKONOMOS [o)ikonomoj], a compound word, OIKO = house; NOMOS = law. OIKONOMIA [o)ikonomia], which is a form of this word, is the word from which we get our word administration or dispensation. So dispensation has to do with the idea of stewardship or administration. And an OIKONOMOS is a steward, in other words to manage—he is given certain responsibilities in the household to manage—and he was the household administrator. So the first phrase, “as a servant of Christ,” emphasizes the position of authority that God has given the pastor-teacher, and the second indicates his responsibilities in that position. He is a steward of the mysteries of God. This is the word MUSTERION [musthrion] used to refer to the revelation that is given in the New Testament that had not been previously revealed. In this context that refers to doctrine related to the church age and the spiritual life of the believer in the church age. 

1 Corinthians 4:2 NASB “In this case, moreover, it is required of stewards that one be found trustworthy.” The word translated “trustworthy” is PISTOS [pistoj] which has to do with being faithful. He is faithful to his responsibilities. So if a pastor is a manager or administrator of the doctrines of the New Testament then what God is holding him accountable for is faithfully teaching and communicating the doctrines of the Word of God.

Results of Redemption

Results of Redemption  Rev. 110b

1)      The judgment of the law is that no one can keep the law. From Galatians 3:13 and 4:4-6 Paul relates redemption to deliverance from the curse of the law.

2)      Redemption is the foundation for the forgiveness of sins, Ephesians 1:7; Colossians 1:14. Forgiveness is the application whereas redemption is the payment of a price. Forgiveness is distinct from redemption but redemption is the basis for forgiveness.

3)      Redemption is the basis for our justification, Romans 3:24. In redemption Christ paid the penalty for all sin, but justification is an application. When we put our faith alone in Christ alone the first thing that happens after that is that God imputes, reckons to us the righteousness of Christ. Then He declares us to be just because you possess the perfect righteousness of Christ. But that is application. Before that can happen the sins have to be paid for.

4)      Redemption, then, is the basis for our sanctification. Ephesians 5:25-27. This is the application of all of this to spiritual growth. We are positionally sanctified by being placed in Christ, but there is still the matter of spiritual growth and spiritual growth takes place as a result of learning the Word of God.

5)      Redemption is the basis for the eternal inheritance of believers. We see this in the study of Revelation because we are redeemed the redeemed have a future role with Jesus Christ in the future kingdom. But there will be those believers who will have no inheritance in the kingdom because they never grow.

6)      Redemption is the basis for the strategic victory of Jesus Christ in the angelic conflict. What Jesus Christ did on the cross not only relates to what happens in the salvation of the human race but also deals with the consequences of sin in all of the universe that came out of Satan’s original sin, Because of Jesus Christ’s redemptive work on the cross He is able to come back at the second coming, able to establish His kingdom, able to roll back the curse in the Millennial kingdom and then eventually destroy the present heavens and earth which is scarred by sin, create a new heavens and earth which will go on into eternity.

7)      Redemption of the soul in salvation results eventually in redemption of the body in resurrection, and also redemption of the planet. Ephesians 1:14; Romans 8:23; Ephesians 4:30.

8)      Redemption views salvation from the standpoint of the complete payment of our sins, the option of believing in Jesus Christ for eternal life.

9)      Since the believer has been bought by Christ we now belong to Christ, He is our master. This is, as it were, the application. Redemption is very important because it is the foundation of everything in application to our salvation. But for the believer it goes a step further, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:20 NASB “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body.” This drives it home to the believer after salvation. It is the imagery of slavery. We were in the slave market of sin; Jesus Christ came and purchased us. We did not become free agents, we just shifted masters. We went from being under the dominion of the sin nature and in the dominion of Satan to being in the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. So we are now His; we belong to Christ. That is the application. It affects how we look at life, it affects our priorities, it affects our decisions, it affects everything.

Resurrection, The First

There are six stages in the first resurrection.

1)      Jesus Christ the firstfruits. He was raised from the dead and received His resurrection body as a guarantee of our resurrection body in circa AD 33.

2)      The group of church age believers who are resurrected at the Rapture.

3)      The two Tribulation witnesses. They are martyred half-way through the Tribulation, laid out for public inspection for three days, and then are resurrected and taken to heaven.

4)      The Tribulation martyrs. That occurs at the end of the Tribulation. 

5)      The Old Testament saints at the end of the Tribulation.

6)      The Millennial saints. It will be extremely rare for a believer to die physically during the Millennium but when that occurs he will receive his resurrection body, either instantaneously or at the end of the Millennium.

Resurrection, The Importance of the

The Importance of the Resurrection RD/2 John 016

1.       In the resurrection Jesus conquered physical death which is the greatest consequence of sin. Genesis 3:14ff outlines the various consequences of sin and physical death is the last one mentioned.

2.       The resurrection validates Jesus’ sacrificial substitutionary payment for the sins of humanity. It is God’s seal of approval, His acceptance of Christ’s payment for our sins.

3.       It was a sign to the Jews. Matthew 12:39, 40 NASB “An evil and adulterous generation craves for a sign; and {yet} no sign will be given to it but the sign of Jonah the prophet; for just as JONAH WAS THREE DAYS AND THREE NIGHTS IN THE BELLY OF THE SEA MONSTER, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.”

4.       There have been various attempts to explain away the resurrection. Frank Morison, an agnostic back in the 50s and 60s, sought to disprove the case for Christianity and the resurrection. But like so many who had gone before him he ended up realising that there was more proof for the resurrection of Jesus Christ than for any other event in history.

5.       The resurrection of Christ is important because it is the basis for the doctrine of our victory over death. It validates who Jesus Christ was and what he claims to do on the cross, and was a sign of God’s acceptance of that sacrifice. The disciples were scared to death when Jesus was arrested, and they fled. But when they saw Jesus Christ in His resurrection body they had the courage to preach His resurrection for the remainder of their lives, many of whom died a martyr’s death because of that position. The resurrection is not a myth; the resurrection is the foundation of Christianity. It is the resurrection that tells us that the tomb was empty.   

Review of Love

Review of Love   RD/3 John 004

   1. Genuine love must be based on integrity. A declaration of love from any individual is only as strong as their personal integrity. If they lack integrity their declaration of love is worthless. If they are a person of tremendous integrity then it has value. If they are a believer and their integrity is based on a relationship with God, they are filled with the Spirit and have Bible doctrine as the foundation for their live, then their love has incredible value.    2. The model for all love is that of God who gave His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross as a substitute for mankind. John 3:16 NASB “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” John 15:13 NASB “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” This can only come from an understanding of pure selflessness, that someone recognises a value system that is outside of the person. It can only take place where there is an external system of absolutes based on objectivity. 1 John 3:16 NASB “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren.” This can only come because we have in our soul Bible doctrine through the filling of the Holy Spirit to understand ultimate reality. A person who is not in right relationship with God, who is operating in carnality or an unbeliever, cannot have an ultimate frame of reference that enables them to live outside themselves.    3. The unbeliever and the carnal believer can only produce a relative integrity that comes from the human good production of the sin nature. Everything that an unbeliever does proceeds from the one and only nature that he has which is the sin nature. It has no spiritual value, it does not impress God, and it does not produce any benefit to him spiritually. The sin nature can produce a counterfeit virtue, a counterfeit love, a counterfeit integrity. This is not demeaning it but it is not the same as the integrity, the virtue, the love that is produced by God the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.    4. Genuine love can only come from Bible doctrine plus the filling of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5:14 NASB “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the {statement,} “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.” Then Paul makes a detour in his argument in Galatians 5:16 NASB “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.” The point that he is making is that there is a certain production of the sin nature that mimics or imitates this kind of love. He then says that the first fruit of the Spirit is love, so the love that we are talking about that characterises the friendships of a believer, the romance of a believer, and marriage, is a love that is based on the integrity of God and is produced by God the Holy Spirit. This makes is a radically different kind of love and his relationship should be markedly different from the relationships of those around him who are living in carnality or are not believers.    5. This means that genuine love is based on personal love for God the Father. That is the starting point, the motivation, the foundation. 1 John 4:20 NASB “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.” The implication is that love for God which is developed from learning doctrine has as its by-product a genuine love for another believer.    6. Impersonal love for all mankind must be the basis for all love relationships between humans, romantic or friendship.

Righteousness and Justice of God

Righteousness and Justice of God  Gen 002

Then we see that God is righteous and just in Genesis, that He is not a capricious God but a God who is righteous and just in contrast to the gods of the Gentiles.

1)      He punishes disobedience with death. Spiritual death is the punishment for the disobedience of Adam and the woman in the garden of Eden.

2)      God is the one who announces a just judgment on sin or disobedience to Him. So He applies His righteous standard to the affairs of mankind.

3)      He punishes Cain for murder, but because it is at such an early stage of the human race He does not take Cain’s life but puts a mark on him and protects him. That is a sign of God’s graciousness in Genesis.

4)      We see in Genesis 6 that God destroys the inhabitants of the earth because man is evil and the thoughts of his heart are evil continuously.

5)      God scatters the nations because of their rebellion—Genesis 11.

6)      He curses and blesses people due to how they treat Abraham’s seed. This is a major theme throughout the rest of Genesis. Blessing by association.

7)      God refuses to judge the innocent along with the guilty. He will not judge Lot and his family if they are righteous along with all the unrighteous in Sodom and Gomorah.

8)      Go treats the kings of the earth justly. When Abraham goes to Abimelech and says Sarah is his sister God warns Abimelech and instead of destroying him He protects him, He treats him justly, even though Abimelech is an unbeliever.

9)      God is the one who protects and vindicates His people. Rachel and Leah, the two daughters of Laban, are treated unjustly by their father Laban, yet God vindicates them and they finally leave and head back to the promised land. Jacob works for Laban and even though he is treated harshly and mistreated by Laban, God protects and ultimately vindicates Jacob.

10)   God made things right for Joseph, even though Joseph was unjustly charged and unjustly imprisoned. Eventually he was released and placed in the second highest position in Egypt. God exercised His righteousness toward Joseph and so the supreme court of heaven took care of the details. It was not up to Joseph to vindicate himself.

Righteousness and Justice of God

The Righteousness and Justice of God RD/Gal/015

The righteousness of God is the standard by which God judges; it either approves or rejects. What the righteousness of God demands the justice of God executes or applies. In light of that we can say that what the righteousness of God approves the justice of God blesses, and what the righteousness of God rejects the justice of God condemns.

1.       Justice guards divine essence. Justice as an application of the divine standard of righteousness guards the essence of God from compromised. God cannot be compromised with sin.

2.       Righteousness guards divine justice. Righteousness provides the absolute standard that divine justice must adhere to.

3.       Righteousness is the key to God’s character. Everything depends on the righteousness of God. God cannot tolerate anything less than His perfect standard.

4.       Perfect righteousness protects divine justice when God is dealing with sinful man. If God was just just without having an absolute standard for His justice then there would be no absolute criterion and God’s justice would therefore not be stable, it would be unstable. Perfect righteousness provides that absolute standard for divine justice to utilize in dealing with sinful men.

5.       Perfect righteousness rejects all sin, therefore justice must condemn sin. God is required by His absolute righteousness to condemn all sin.

6.       Perfect righteousness must also reject all human good because it is relative. Isaiah 64:6 – “All our righteousness is as filthy rags.”

Righteousness: The Production of

k, 

The Production Righteousness.  RD/James/031

1)      The goal of the Christian life is the character of Christ. We are not to be conformed to this life but conformed to the image of Jesus Christ—Romans 12:2. That comes about through the renovation of our thinking. This is exemplified in the production of the Holy Spirit in Galatians chapter five. The fruit of the Spirit means production. The spiritual life when we are under the control of the filling of the Holy Spirit and applying doctrine results in beginning to transform our character into the character of Jesus Christ. The image of Christ is formed in us. That is the direction of spiritual maturity.

2)      This is one of the reasons Christ died as a substitute for us on the cross. He did not die for you and for me so that we could live life on our terms. He died for us so that we could be transformed into His character eventually so that we could be successful witnesses in the angelic conflict. 1 Peter 2:24 NASB “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness [application righteousness, production righteousness]; for by His wounds you were healed.”

3)        Production righteousness is spelled out as the goal of divine discipline and the purpose of passing testing in Hebrews 12:11. “All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.” The same thought is reiterated in Ephesians 5:8-10 NASB “or you were formerly darkness, but now you are Light in the Lord; walk as children of Light (for the fruit of the Light {consists} in all goodness and righteousness and truth), trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.”

4)      The mandate, therefore, is to produce righteousness. 2 Timothy 2:22; 1 Timothy 6:11. “But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance {and} gentleness.” These are to be the priorities in the spiritual life, the goal of a transformed life, manifesting the character of Christ under the filling of God the Holy Spirit.

5)      Production righteousness is the result of the renovation of the thinking based on Bible doctrine. Don’t get the cart before the horse, so don’t go out and try to morally try to renovate your life. The goal is to renovate your thinking; it is change from the inside out. It is not moral renovation through the energy of the flesh. 2 Timothy 3:16 gives us the mechanics. NASB “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.”  

Role of Priesthood

Role of the Priesthood      Heb. 043b

   1. to oversee the sacrifices and offerings, Deut 18:5 

   2. to pray for the nation, Joel 2:17

   3. to teach the law to the people, Lev 10:11 and Malachi 2:7

   4. to be an example of personal spiritual growth, Deut 33:9.

Salt and LIght

Seven different ways in which Christian scholars have identified the significance of this metaphor  

Matt 025b

1.     Bible Knowledge Commentary: This meant that the disciples were to create a thirst for greater information. (That is not the best-supported analogy)

2.     To season food. This is that their place in the world is to add a certain amount of seasoning, for it would be otherwise bland. (Kitchen metaphor)

3.     The most popular use it to preserve. This has been attested in the ancient world and all the way up to the present, that the presence of salt prevents spoilage of food.

4.     To fertilize. This is also a somewhat more popular interpretation than many people realize. You use it sparingly. Too much would mean that the soil would not be productive at all.

5.     According to rabbinical thought salt was a metaphor for wisdom.

6.     For purification. This is why salt was included in the sacrifices in the Old Testament, indicating purification and cleansing.

7.     Salt would be applied to a lamp's wick to increase the brightness of its burning.

Salvation

Salvation     Heb. 100

You have to have three things to get into heaven.

   1. Sin has to be paid for.

   2. You have to have a new life because you’re born spiritually dead.  You have to have regeneration.

   3. You have to have the imputation of righteousness. 

Salvation, Three Phases of

In salvation the Bible talks about 3 different stages or phases of salvation.   RD/Heb/178b

   1. Stage 1 is when we first believed that Jesus died on the cross for our sins.  If you’re an Old Testament believer, you believed that God would provide a Savior through the seed of the woman.  In that instant that one trusted in God for salvation, trusting Christ for salvation in the New Testament that instant a person receives the imputation (in the Church Age) of Christ’s righteousness and is declared to be just.  That is the classic doctrine of justification by faith alone.

   2. But we also have a post salvation faith related to Stage 2 which is being saved from the power of sin, delivered from the power of sin.  So that is an ongoing faith.

Paul talks in Romans 1 about going from faith to faith.  That has the idea from saving justifying faith to sanctifying faith.  So that is the idea here that Noah who was already justified because according to Genesis 6 he had found grace in the eyes of the Lord.  He was already justified phase 1.  Building the ark and trusting God and his revelation about judgment, building the ark and all that was related to his spiritual life, his spiritual growth, part of his faith rest drill , to believe the promise of God and as a result of trusting God he grew and matured spiritually.  On that basis he became an heir of righteousness.

This word heir of righteousness (I guess I haven’t turned on the projectors on here.)  The word heir there is the Greek word kleronomos, a word that we have we have seen before. (I guess those are coming on.  It takes them a minute to warm up.)  Kleronomos which means heir and that brings in the entire Doctrine of the Heirship and Inheritance which becomes an important theme as we go through Hebrews 11. It's only mentioned a couple of times.  The words related to heir and inheritance are mentioned here in verse 7 and again in verse 8.

Another word that we'll look at in a little while is the word promise.  (Stage 3) Promise has to do with future fulfillment of something.  A promise is given as a security, as a pledge of something that God will do in the future.    That is related to inheritance.  So these three words related to inheritance and heirship and promise are all interconnected especially within this epistle to the Hebrews.

I concluded last time by pointing out that there are two distinct categories of heirship for the Church Age believer.  We see them identified in Romans 8:17.

NKJ Romans 8:17 and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

The way that is normally punctuated with the commas there, it looks as if heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ are what is being described by heirs.

and if children, then heirs

As if they’re talking about the same things as if  those two categories; heirs of God and joint heirs of Christ as if those are synonymous.  But they're not.

Remember there's no punctuation.  There was no little m-dash or n-dash in the original Greek.  There was no comma.  The original Greek – in fact you had two kinds of manuscripts.  You had unctuals which were all capital letters; and they didn't even break words at the end of a line with a hyphen or by syllable.  They just broke them wherever.  Whenever they reached the end of the line, then they stopped writing.  That’s where they started on the next line.  So it was easy for them to read because that was what they were used to.  And, if you were reading English that way you wouldn’t have trouble either because you know the English language and it would make sense to you.  But when we come to it as second language learners; it's difficult sometimes to identify punctuation.

Most of time punctuation is clear in Greek by syntax.  That was the beauty of Greek syntax.  It made the punctuation clear.  They didn't need to use commas and periods and all of these other things because the syntax itself would indicate how something should be read.  But on occasion it's ambiguous and so you have to use a little theology and comparison of Scripture with Scripture in order to figure some things out.

Salvation,Three Stages of

Three Stages of Salvation.    RD/Heb. 045b

   1. Stage one is justification salvation where we are saved from the penalty of sin.  What is the penalty of sin?  The Lake of Fire?  No!  Spiritual death.  Spiritual death was the penalty for sin.  That is what God announced in Genesis 2.

NKJ Genesis 2:17 "but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

What happened? They ate and they died right then.  It was spiritual death and separation from God.  They died spiritually.  They lost that human spirit.  Every subsequent generation after that is born is without the human spirit.  They have a human soul and a human body; but that immaterial element that allows the soul to communicate with God, relate to God and to understand the things of God is missing.  They are born without the human spirit so they begin to die physically from the moment they are born because they are separated from the source of life which is God.  Now Jesus Christ comes, He dies on the cross for our sins, we trust in Him and what happens at that instant?  We are born again.  We are regenerate.  We receive what?  Spiritual life.  That is the penalty reversed.  That is justification salvation.

   2. We are saved from the penalty of sin which is spiritual death.  We receive spiritual life.  But now that new life has to grow.  We are a new born baby as it were.  We are spiritual babies and we have to grow.  We grow by walking by the Spirit and by studying the Word of God.  The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God that we learn and it produces growth in our life.  That is the process of working out our salvation. Philippians 2.   It is phase 2.

   3. The ultimate goal that all of this is going to is phase 3 glorification when we realize the full results of our salvation, our soteria.  That is the Greek noun for salvation which we always think of in terms of phase 1; but in most of the New Testament it is talking about the end product, that toward which we are going and the final package that is ours in glorification.  That is a key to properly understanding and interpreting the Scripture.

Salvation,Three Things you need for

Three Things you need to get to Heaven     RD/Heb. 061b

You have to have three things in order to get into heaven.

   1. Number one you have to have your sin paid for.  The penalty of sin has to be paid for.

   2. The second thing that has to happen is you have to possess the righteousness of God.  You can’t get into heaven without it.  God’s perfect righteousness can’t have fellowship with relative or negative righteousness.

   3. The third thing that a person has to have is eternal life.

Same-Sex Marriage

The big issue right now is same-sex marriage  Gen. 104b

1)      The idea of same-ex marriage is an attempt to meet legitimate needs, i.e. we all have needs for acceptance, approval, affection, love relationship, in illegitimate and ungodly ways. It is never the job of law to substantiate that which is evil.

2)      Secondly, homosexuals are outside of God’s created intention for sex. There is a complimentary facet to the male-female soul and the male-female body. Just one example of this if you hadn’t thought about it. When God lowered the boom in the curse and explained the different dynamics of the results of sin, the impact of sin on he woman was different from the impact of sin on the man. That had to do with the fact that the woman’s soul is different from the male soul. So God has designed marriage to be one man and one woman because of the way He designed men and women.

3)      Marriage is an earth-bound illustration of Christ and the church. In Christ and the church there are two different entities, they are not the same entity.

4)      According to Romans chapter one the worship of the creature, even as that works itself out in illicit, unnatural sexual activity, is a form of idolatry. Romans 1:18ff. Same-sex relations are destructive and dangerous. Study after study after study documents this. It is unhealthy for society. What the proponents are trying to do is maintain a façade of normalcy and legitimacy. By legitimizing same-sex unions they want the sanction of law that their sins are just fine. And the next step is that anyone who says that homosexuality is a sin is going to be guilty of hate speech or some kind of criminal speech that won’t be protected by law.

5)      The homosexual marriage and the homosexual lifestyle is not parallel to heterosexual lifestyle. In heterosexual marriages 57% last over 20 years. There is stability there and that is the purpose for marriage—to provide stability and the context for promotion and teaching of values to the next generation. Homosexual relationships average two to three years in length and only five per cent last over 20 years. They are incredibly unstable. Seventy per cent of men are faithful in a heterosexual marriage; eighty-eight per cent of women are faithful in a heterosexual marriage. But homosexual relationships are characterized by promiscuity and they have hundreds of sexual partners over a lifetime. In a heterosexual marriage the man and the woman are committed, and they are faithful and stable. In homosexual relationships men have traditionally three to five outside partners. (In Holland it is eight) In those who have been together for more than five years not one has been completely monogamous. In lesbian relationships they are volatile, there is domestic and emotional violence which is characteristic, and usually in the background of various lesbians.

Quote from Reverend Troy Perry who is the founder of the Metropolitan Community Church which the largest homosexual church in America. This was in an interview in the Dallas Morning News: “Monogamy is not a word the gay community uses. We talk about fidelity. That means you live in a loving, caring, honest relationship with your partner. You are honest about the other men in your life as well. Because we can’t marry we have people with widely varying opinions as to what that means. Some would say that committed couples could have multiple sexual partners as long as there is no deception. Each couple has to decide.” So there is no such thing as monogamy or faithfulness, and they twist the meaning of these terms.

Heterosexual marriage people live longer and happier lives. In homosexual relationships you have health problems: AIDS, high risk of sexually transmitted diseases. There is three times the rate of alcohol and drug abuse in homosexual relationships, much more promiscuity, a higher rate of domestic violence, and there is a shortened lifespan.

Heterosexual marriage is the best place to raise healthy children. Homosexual relationships put children at risk. Remember, marriage and family in one sense are all about the children. It is about the future and preparing for the future, whereas homosexuality is all about me because there is no future generation to orient to, it is all about the individual gratifying his own desires.

Isaiah 5:20, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.” And this is where we are in our culture. We want to define homosexual activity as normal, healthy and good, and if you don‘t agree with that then you are guilty of hate speech. 

Can a homosexual be saved? Homosexuality is not an issue in salvation. No sin is an issue in salvation. The issue in salvation is faith alone in Christ alone. 

Sanctification, Three Types of

Three Types of Sanctification   Heb. 024b

   1. Positional sanctification that occurs at the instant of salvation.  At the moment you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, you were entered into the union with Him and you are fully, positionally set apart.  It’s positional, not experiential. 

   2. Experiential or progressive sanctification is the process of spiritual advance.

   3. When we’re absent from the body and face-to-face with the Lord at the time of our physical death or rapture, we no longer have an old sin nature and are glorified.  That’s referred to as total or final sanctification.

Satan, Throne of

Throne of Satan    Rev. 046b

There are five suggested interpretations

1)      The throne of Satan refers to the worship of a religious system that used the serpent as a symbol. Everywhere in the city of Pergamum there were serpent images. However, the worship of this system wasn’t limited to Pergamum.

2)      Furthermore, the serpent was also a symbol Zeus. The altar of Zeus was also a site for pilgrimages to Pergamum in the ancient world.

3)      Another suggested interpretation was that Pergamum was the centrepiece for Christian persecution at that time. This is indicated in the verse because it mentions the martyrdom of Antipas, called “my faithful servant.” That doesn’t fit the scenario either because there are numerous persecutions throughout the next couple of centuries.

4)      Another is that it was because Pergamum was just more pagan and more hostile to Christianity than other cities. But again, that really doesn’t hold water historically.

5)      What does seem to be true is that emperor worship was intense in Pergamum, more so than anywhere else. In fact, this was the headquarters for emperor worship. If you were a Roman citizen and you did not sware allegiance to the government, to the state, over any other god, then you put your life at risk. This is always the problem in pagan cultures and in non-biblically based societies: someone always wants to fill the vacuum when God is removed from public discourse. When God is taken out of the public arena then something else always moves in. If God isn’t the ultimate source of values for a culture then who is going to replace Him? When the government replaces God as the source of values you are in tyranny. That is what has been going on in the US and Europe for the past 100 years. Government is now the final arbiter of everything; government becomes a messianic figure. And this is just a precursor to what takes place during the Tribulation. The government of the revived Roman empire will be embodied in the person of the Antichrist who is setting himself up as an alternative god. This is why these culture wars that we are involved in today are so crucial because what is a stake is who will ultimately determine the meaning of truth in a society. Once the state becomes the final authority, then the state defines freedom, the state defines what is right and what is wrong, the state defines all of the issues that matter in life; and once that happens freedom will rapidly erode.

Satan,Titles of

The Titles of Satan that we find in Scripture  Rev. 190b

These titles say something about his character on the one hand and they say something about his goals, objectives, his methodologies on the other hand.

1.       The title that is used most often is the term Satan which is a Hebrew word [satan] and it means “adversary.” It is used 27 times in the Old Testament and almost 30 times in the New Testament, and it is the most common word that is used. So Satan’s name is “adversary” and it shows his role as an antagonist to God from his original fall where he was seeking to set himself up as god.

2.       The devil, [diabolos/ diaboloj]. He is the slanderer, the father of lies. Matthew 4:1. He slanders the character of God, he slanders believers, he lies about them and misrepresents them and God’s character for his own ends.

3.       The prince and the power of the air, Ephesians 2:2. “… according to the course of this world…” Here we have the term kosmos [kosmoj]. That is important to understand because kosmos isn’t just a term for the earth or all of those who dwell upon the earth, though it is used that way in John 3:16. Here it is talking about the thinking of the world, the thought systems of the world, and there are as many different thought systems on the earth as there are people groups and language groups. A worldview expresses the thinking of a people within the world. A worldview always expresses itself in terms of reality. What is reality? Is it personal or is it impersonal? If it is personal, does that person communicate or has that person communicated to man? What kind of person is it? Flowing out of the idea of ultimate reality is the idea of knowledge. How do we know about this ultimate reality? How do we come to know truth? From the time we are born we live according to the standards of the world system around us, we are brought up and trained to think a certain way by those around us. An unbeliever’s thinking is always shaped by the thinking around him. It is also called human viewpoint thinking, of which there are many different kinds, and it is all cosmic thinking because the starting point is always man or something in creation and not God as being distinct from creation. This is the same kind of thinking that Satan has, his starting point was himself and that he was a creature who could be like God. He shifted his thinking away from God as the ultimate reference point to himself. It is the thinking of “the prince of the power of the air” because it is Satan who lies behind all of those different ways of thinking, his basic arrogance and autonomy. So we are born into the cosmic system and basically brainwashed in the cosmic system and we think the way Satan thinks. “… this is the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.” The “sons of disobedience is just a general term Paul has for those who are unbelievers who are in rebellion against God. It is a term that is somewhat parallel to but not exactly identical to the term that we have seen in Revelation, “earth dwellers.” The “prince of the power of the air” emphasizes Satan who energizes the thought systems that define the cultures in the kingdoms of man.

4.       The god of this age. 2 Corinthians 4:4 NASB “in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” The term “age” here translates a Greek word aionos [a)iwnoj], a word that overlaps the word kosmos. The word kosmos has to do with the world and the thinking within the world, emphasizing its organization and its orderliness—systems of thinking. aionos emphasizes the same thing but from a different vantage point. It is looking at that system as a system that dominates during a certain time period. This is the word that is translated “world” in Romans 12:2 where it is emphasizing the spirit of the age. The spirit of the age is the spirit that dominates any culture at any particular time. We live in an age where the spirit of the age is postmodernism. So “the god of this age” is dictating the thought systems of the age.

5.       The ruler of this world (John 12:31), the ruler of the cosmic system. These last three titles tell us that Satan is behind all of the world’s systems of thinking. There are only two ways of thinking: God’s way and the way that is opposed to God, even though there are many different facets and manifestations of the way that is opposed to God. Human viewpoint thinking is identical to Satanic thinking and to cosmic thinking; they are all the same thing. So when we are not thinking like God would have us to think, i.e. according to the Scriptures, we are thinking just like Satan would have us to think, and he is working furiously behind the scenes to achieve his end results in terms of controlling human history and bringing about the establishment of his kingdom and the defeat of God’s plan.

6.       This takes us back to his fall, Isaiah 14:12-14 where he is referred to as Lucifer in the KJV. In the Hebrew [helel ben shahar]  it means “shining one,” or “son of the dawn.” 

7.       The great red dragon, Revelation 12:9. The great dragon is going to empower the Antichrist in the end time kingdom is the same person that was in the garden with Eve and what he does is deceive the whole world.

8.       The wicked one, Matthew 13:19. This describes his character, evil to the core.

9.       He is called the tempter in 1 Thessalonians 3:5 and Matthew 4:3. His role is to entice people to disobey God and to live independently of God.

10.   He is the accuser, Revelation 12:10.

Satan's Greatest Tool

Religion as Satan’s Greatest Tool to Destroy Christianity

RD/1 Cor. 056

1)        Christianity and religion are antithetical. Christianity is a relationship with God based on the work of Christ; religion is the work of man based on his own reality or ritual. In Christianity God is impressed with the work of Christ; in religion man tries to impress God with his own works.

2)        Christianity is an eternal relationship with God based on personal faith in Christ. In religion man seeks the approval of God through his good works and his own merit.

3)        Religion reflects Satan’s thinking. Satan is arrogant. Satan put all his emphasis on who he was and his own personal abilities and talents. Therefore all religious systems ultimately come down to an emphasis on who the individual is, his own ability and his own talent.

4)        As part of his promotion of religion Satan has devised a number of counterfeits. Remember, Satan is the greatest counterfeiter in all of history. 2 Corinthians 4 tells us that he appears as an angel of light and his ministers as ministers of righteousness. He is a tremendous counterfeiter. Cf. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15.

5)        There are nine counterfeits in Satan’s system: a) He has a counterfeit gospel (2 Corinthians 4:3, 4; Galatians 6:1-8). Satan attempts to counterfeit the gospel through a works oriented system; b) He has counterfeit ministers (2 Corinthians 11:13-15); c) He has a counterfeit communion table (1 Corinthians 10) which is associated with idolatry; d) He has counterfeit doctrine, counterfeit teaching called doctrines of demons (2 Timothy 4:1); e) He has a counterfeit spirituality—morality or ritual (Galatians 3:1-3); f) He has a counterfeit system of righteousness (Matthew 19:16-28), that man on his own can impress God; g) He has counterfeit gods. These are the idols (2 Thessalonians 2:3, 4); h) He has a counterfeit system of power through pseudo miracles (2 Thessalonians 2:8-10); i) He has a counterfeit way of life (Matthew 23:13-26). So it is through religion and these counterfeits that Satan seeks to distract mankind. The greatest religious counterfeit that Satan has ever developed is Islam.

Satan's Strategy

Satan’s strategy    RD/James/071

1)      Satan is the master counterfeiter. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15. “For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. No wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. Therefore it is not surprising if his servants also disguise themselves as servants of righteousness, whose end will be according to their deeds.” Satan would rather masquerade and promote morality because that is much more destructive than immorality. Remember Satan wants to rule and bring order to the cosmos, to bring peace and stability to everything, so he would rather promote righteousness and morality than unrighteousness and immorality.

2)      Satan counterfeits the truth a number of different ways. He has counterfeit doctrines, 1 Timothy 4:1. He has counterfeit teachers and prophets. We would be amazed to see how many men there are in pulpits of churches who are not believers and who are there to promote false doctrine under the sponsorship of Satan and the demons. He sponsors a counterfeit communion table, 1 Corinthians 10:20, 21. He offers a counterfeit righteousness which is based on legalism and morality, Matthew 19:16-26. He promotes a counterfeit gospel, a false gospel that includes works, 2 Corinthians 11:3, 4. This is one of the ways he obscures the truth of the gospel and blinds unbelievers to the truth of the gospel, 2 Corinthians 4:4. He offers a counterfeit spirituality which is designed to get believers off-track, Galatians 3:2, 3. He also performs counterfeit signs, wonders and miracles, 2 Thessalonians 2:8-10.

3)      His primary method of distracting and blinding people to the truth is through false systems of thinking called cosmic thinking. The term that is used is COSMOS DIABOLICUS, the devil’s cosmic system. As the promoter of these systems he is called the ruler of this world, this cosmos.

4)      As the ruler he is a failure. One of the best quotes on this comes from Louis Sperry Chafer, Systematic Theology, Vol. II, p. 100:

“Next to the lie itself, the greatest delusion Satan imposes—reaching to all unsaved and to a large proportion of Christians—is the supposition that only such things as society considers evil could originate with the devil—if, indeed, there be any devil to originate anything. It is not the reason of man, but the revelation of God, which points out that governments, morals, education, art, commercialism, vast enterprises and organizations, and much of religious activity are included in the cosmos diabolicus. That is, the system which Satan has constructed includes all the good which he can incorporate into it and be consistent in the thing he aims to accomplish. A serious question arises whether the presence of gross evil in the world is due to Satan’s intention to have it so, or whether it indicates Satan’s inability to execute all he has designed. The probability is great that Satan’s ambition has led him to undertake more than any creature could ever administer. Revelation declares that the whole cosmos-system must be annihilated—not its evil alone, but all that is in it, both good and bad. God will incorporate nothing of Satan’s failure into that kingdom which He will set up in the earth.”    

5)      Satan distorts the truth. Matthew 4:1-11. Satan knows the Bible as well as any believer, but he uses it, twists it, and misinterprets it for his own ends. This passage has to do with the testing of Christ to validate His claim to be Messiah at the initiation of His ministry.

6)      The concept that we as believers in order to defeat Satan are to bind Satan. Matthew 12:29 NASB “Or how can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong {man?} And then he will plunder his house.” The strong man is analogous to the demon or to Satan who is controlling that house. All He is saying there is that the house here represents Israel. Because there has been negative volition and because the earth has been under Satan’s domain that Jesus came by going to the cross Jesus destroyed the power of Satan over the earth, at least potentially. This is not a mandate that believers bind Satan, it is referring to what the Lord is going to do in restricting Satan’s power at the cross. There is another passage that people go to for binding, and this is in Matthew 16:19 NASB “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” In Rabbinic literature binding and loosing are technical judicial terms. Binding means to give someone permission to do something and loosing is prohibition. So whatever you bind on earth is a description of the fact that if you explain the gospel to somebody and they respond by faith alone in Christ alone, then that is binding. You have given them salvation and that is secured in heaven. Whatever you loose, i.e. by condemning someone for failure to trust Christ for salvation, on earth, they will be loosed in heaven, they will not have salvation. So binding and loosing is related to apostolic authority in giving the gospel to unbelievers. Binding and loosing never refers to Satan, in fact Satan is not bound in the Scripture until the Millennial. All of this false teaching today is based upon the idea that man somehow in offensive action against Satan, but the terminology that we have throughout the Scriptures is the word ANTHISTEMI [a)nqisthmi]. It is a compound of the Greek ANTI [a)nti] + HISTEMI [i(sthmi], which means to stand against and came to mean to stand firm, to stand your ground, to take up a defensive posture. It was a technical military term for a defensive perimeter. Notice that in terms of the soul fortress that God establishes for us that we have been talking about in James, the fortress is a defensive posture. You do not engage in offensive action from a fort, it is purely defensive. You cannot win any kind of engagement though by defensive action alone, but victory in the Christian life is not due to our offensive action because our command is to stay ion the fortress—a)nqisthmi, to take up a defensive posture. Ephesians 6:10ff… “put on the full armour of God,” i.e. the soul fortress, “that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil… [13] …that you may be able to resist—a)nqisthmi… and having done everything to stand firm—i(sthmi… [14] therefore stand firm—i(sthmi.” This is a defensive term, so the believer’s position in relationship to Satan and demons is not to try to figure out what they are doing or to engage them in combat, the offensive engagement is the Lord’s, “the battle is the Lord’s.” It is the Lord who takes care of the believer. That is why the command is Scripture in James 4:7 is “Resist the devil.” That is our command. “… he will flee from us.” Why? Because then the Lord comes to our aid.

Scripture Refering to Rebound

There are several phrases found in Scripture that contain commands and exhortations for rebound recovery:

Jeremiah 3:13 - “Only acknowledge [ Qal imperative of ud^y* Ea^ ’ach yatha‘: Only make known, i.e., acknowledge ] your sins, [ /ou* ‘awan: guilt of conscious wrongdoing ] that you have transgressed against the Lord your God, and have scattered your harlotries with strangers [ anonymous intimacy with Gentile heathen in the phallic cult ] under every green tree, and have not obeyed My voice,” says the Lord.

Romans 6:13 - Stop placing [ present active imperative of mhdš plus parist£nw, mēde paristanō: to place oneself at another’s disposal for service ] your members [ the body with emphasis on the brain ] as weapons of wickedness [ functioning in darkness ] under orders to the sin nature, but place [ aorist active imperative of paristanō ] yourselves under orders to God [ by means of rebound ] as those who are alive from deaths [ baptism of the Holy Spirit ] and your body as weapons of righteousness to God [ functioning in the Light ].

Romans 12:1 - Therefore I urge you, fellow believers, by the mercies of God, to place your bodies under orders [ par…sthmi, paristēmi: to present oneself by means of rebound under the authority of another ] as a living sacrifice, well-pleasing to God, your rational and spiritual service.

1 Corinthians 11:31 - If we would keep on judging ourselves [ diakr…nw, diakrinō: spiritual self-analysis resulting in rebound ], then we should not be judged [ kr…nw, krinō: punishment due to divine discipline ].

1 Corinthians 11:32 - But when we are punished [ kr…nw, krinō ] we are disciplined [ paideÚw, paideuō: corrective measures designed to stimulate rebound ] under the authority of the Lord [ warning, intensive, & terminal ] that we should not be condemned with the world [ great white throne judgment ].

Ephesians 4:22 - With reference to your former manner of life, rid yourselves of the old man [ refers to the sinful nature and the option of rebound ], which is becoming depraved according to the lusts of deceit.

Ephesians 5:13 - All things [ regarding life in the darkness of reversionism ] being exposed by the light [ the absolute standards of Scripture ] are made known [ to the discerning believer ], for all things made known is Light [ truth: doctrine exposes the lie ].

Ephesians 5:14 - Therefore, for Isaiah says, [ Isaiah 26:19; 60:1 ] “Wake up [ become aware of your reversionism ] you sleeping one [ spiritual nonfunction in status quo carnality ], and arise from among the dead [ through rebound and subsequent Bible study, spiritually separate from those who remain in reversionism ], and Christ will shine on you [ blessings associated with spiritual growth ].”

Hebrews 12:1 - Therefore, since we keep having so great a battalion of witnesses [ faith-rest heroes of Heb 11 ] surrounding us [ as our examples ], having removed [ aorist middle participle of ¢pot…qemai, apotithemai: to throw off; the participle connotes a challenge and therefore is a hortatory imperative ] every impediment and the sin that so easily ensnares us [ rebound adjustment ] let us advance [ present active subjunctive of tršcw, trechō, hortatory to press the attack ] with endurance in the conflict set before us.

Hebrews 12:12 - Therefore, restore power to the hands that hang down and the disabled knees [ idiom for rebound adjustment that restores spiritual strength to the soul ],

Hebrews 12:13 - and be making straight wheel-tracks [ present active imperative of poišw ÑrqÒj troci£, poieō orthos trochia: straight wheel-tracks of righteousness ] by means of your feet [ rebound followed by consistent intake of doctrine ] in order that the crippled one [ the spiritually handicapped carnal believer ] be not disoriented [ from God’s plan and purpose for his life ], but rather, let him receive healing [ forgiveness, fellowship, and filling ].

James 1:21 - Therefore, having removed [ aorist middle participle of ¢pot…qemai, apotithemai: to throw off; the participle connotes a challenge and therefore is a hortatory imperative ] all pollution and the remnants of wickedness [ by means of 1 John 1:9 ], with humility receive [ aorist middle imperative of dšcomai, dechomai: to willingly accept, i.e., positive volition toward doctrine ] the impregnated [ œmfutoj, emphutos: to implant divine thought which grows to produce fruit ] Word which will deliver [ sèzw, sōzō: doctrine in the kardia will deliver the soul from the darkness of reversionism ] your souls.

These verses, all of which corroborate the principle found in 1 John 1:9, emphasize the importance of having a lifestyle, behavior patterns, and character traits that typify those who reside in the Light of Bible doctrine inside the divine power system.

Scripture Why We Interpret it Literally

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 Why We Interpret Scripture Literally   Heb. 101b

   1. First of all, because the prophecy that is fulfilled is fulfilled literally.  The prophecy that is fulfilled is fulfilled literally. When Micah 5:2 says that the Messiah is going to be born in Bethlehem, He is born in Bethlehem.  He’s not born in Nazareth.  He’s not born in Jerusalem.  He’s not born in up in Tiberias.  He is born in Bethlehem.  When it says that He will come from the line of David, Jesus comes from the line of David.  He didn’t come from a Levitical line or some other line.  So the prophecy that we see that is fulfilled is fulfilled literally.

   2. The second thing I pointed out was in terms of language and the image of God that if we understand the nature of God as the creator totally distinct from His creation then God endowed man with an ability that could understand and comprehend what God was revealing.  That was the thrust of this particular quote from Gordon C. Clark.

If God created man in His own rational image and endowed him with the power of speech, then a purpose of language, in fact the chief purpose of language would naturally be the communication of truth to man and the prayers of man to God.

So if we just start with Genesis we realize that it is embedded in the first three chapters of Genesis is a whole philosophy of language that tells us how we should understand these things.  When God said, “Don’t eat from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, how was that interpreted by Adam? Well, he wasn’t avoiding other truths.  He understands it literally.  There was the one tree that was the issue.  They didn’t think that it was some other tree or they didn’t think that it was – oh I have heard people tell me that the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was sexual procreation and all these other things. They weren’t interpreting that way; they were interpreting it in a literal normal fashion.

   3. Then the third reason I pointed out was that any other sort of hermeneutical system ultimately leads to some kind of subjectivity and uncertainty as to what the real meaning is.

That is where you get into all this theological discussion.  That’s why today the battlefield always goes back to hermeneutics.  If you go to Dallas Seminary and you get involved or listen to any of the debates that have been going on for the last 15  years over progressive dispensationalism, it always boils down to hermeneutics.  In fact the men who developed this whole new twist on progressive dispensationalism developed a totally new system of hermeneutics called complementary hermeneutics.  It’s not literal. It has a whole different twist to it, but they had to do that in order to substantiate and argue for their position. 

Sermon on the Mount

Eight things covered in the Sermon on the Mount

1. The beatitudes, 5:3-12.

2. The influence of the sons of the kingdom, 5:13-16.

3. The relationship of the kingdom to the Law, 5:17-48. Basically what we see here is Jesus giving the divine viewpoint interpretation of the  Mosaic Law and divine righteousness in contrast to the legalistic and superficial view presented by the Pharisees.

4. The relationship of the kingdom to public and private righteousness, 6:1-18.

           5. The relationship of the kingdom to wealth, 6:19-34.

           6. The relationship of the kingdom to judging, 7:1-6.

           7. The kingdom righteousness can be received by prayer

and exhibited in conduct, 7:7-12.

           8. A comparison of Christ’s teaching on righteousness with that of the Pharisees, 7:13-27.

Shepherd

Shepherd RD/John/063

1)      It goes back to creation. God made the creation to show His handiwork, Psalm 19:1 NASB “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.” Why are things the way they are? Because God made them that way. God made sheep to be sheep and to have those characteristics so that he could use that animal as an analogy to teach certain things to Christians about the nature of the everyday believer. The person most responsible for dealing with the sheep is the shepherd, and a shepherd is someone who knows the sheep inside and out, and in the culture of that day the shepherds lived with the sheep. They knew every single one of the sheep. When we look at Scripture like John chapter ten we need to realise that every passage has a context. As we have seen before, one rule of hermeneutics is any text without a context is a pretext. This particular passage has three levels of context we need to look at. The first level we need to examine is the overall biblical context. The second is the cultural context of the time in which the Scripture was written. Third, we must look at the immediate context, i.e. John chapter nine, in order to understand why Jesus suddenly begins to talk about sheep and shepherds.

2)      Prior to the first advent we have the shepherd-sheep analogy used in several ways. First, it is used of Yahweh. Psalm 23:1 NASB “The LORD [Yahweh] is my shepherd, I shall not want.” Psalm 79:13 NASB “So we Your people and the sheep of Your pasture Will give thanks to You forever; To all generations we will tell of Your praise.” Psalm 80:1 NASB “Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who are enthroned {above} the cherubim, shine forth!” Psalm 95:7 NASB “For He is our God, And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand. Today, if you would hear His voice.” Ezekiel 34:15 NASB “’I will feed My flock and I will lead them to rest,’ declares the Lord GOD [Yahweh].” So it is an identification of deity. The second way it is used is of the kings, princes and leaders of the nation Israel—and of other nations at times as well. Psalm 78:70 NASB “He also chose David His servant And took him from the sheepfolds; [71] From the care of the ewes with suckling lambs He brought him To shepherd Jacob His people, And Israel His inheritance. [72] So he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart, And guided them with his skillful hands.” Here we see that the  term “shepherd” is used of David the king. So it is a term that has an Old Testament connotation of God and also the Davidic kingship. What does that tell us? When Jesus says He is the good shepherd He is claming undiminished deity and He is claiming to be the Messiah—Davidic kingship. What was the purpose for John: “These are written that you might believe that Jesus is the Messiah…” The Messiah is the Davidic kingship. So when we come to John 10 we must understand the context. The context is the Old Testament and the Old Testament tells us that this is not just some little analogy that Jesus comes up with. He is making a profound doctrinal point and that is why He introduces it by the phrase, Truly, truly [A)mhn, a)mhn]. Every time He uses that it is to emphasise an important doctrinal point. Then the term sheep and shepherd is an analogy that is used to describe the evil false teachers. Jeremiah 23:1-4 NASB “Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of My pasture!” declares the LORD.” Think about what has just happened in John chapter nine. Jesus healed the blind man, the blind man is brought before the Pharisees, the Pharisees go through this interrogation procedure to see what happened and how it happened, and in his very simple yet profound way he refutes all their arguments by saying all he knew was that he was blind but now he sees. The Pharisees say they can’t accept that, you have to be lying, get out of here, and he is excommunicated from the synagogue. They are “scattering my people.” So the Pharisees are going to be the false shepherds.  “Therefore thus says the LORD God of Israel concerning the shepherds who are tending My people: ‘You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them; behold, I am about to attend to you for the evil of your deeds,’ declares the LORD. Then I Myself will gather the remnant of My flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and bring them back to their pasture, and they will be fruitful and multiply. [23] I will also raise up shepherds over them and they will tend them; and they will not be afraid any longer, nor be terrified, nor will any be missing,’ declares the LORD.” This is an indictment by God of the leaders of Israel. Ezekiel chapter 34 is crucial to understanding John chapter 10. The first ten verses relate to the false shepherds. [1] NASB “Then the word of the LORD came to me saying, ‘Son of man [Ezekiel], prophesy against the shepherds of Israel [leaders of the people]. [2] Prophesy and say to those shepherds, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Woe, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding themselves! [Religion always hates grace] Should not the shepherds feed the flock? [3] You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat {sheep} without feeding the flock. [4] Those who are sickly you have not strengthened, the diseased you have not healed, the broken you have not bound up, the scattered you have not brought back, nor have you sought for the lost; but with force and with severity you have dominated them. [5] They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered …. [11] For thus says the Lord GOD, ‘Behold, I Myself will search for My sheep and seek them out.” So who is it that is seeking the sheep? It is God. So when Jesus says He is the good shepherd He is clearly claiming deity.  [12] “‘As a shepherd cares for his herd in the day when he is among his scattered sheep, so I will care for My sheep and will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day. [13] I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries and bring them to their own land [the restoration of the nation Israel at the end of the Tribulation]; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the streams, and in all the inhabited places of the land.’” 

Showbread

Showbread or shewbread (arch.)   RD/Heb 138c

Heb. lehem happanîm, lit. ‘bread of the face’, i.e., bread set before the face or presence of God (Ex. 25:30; Ex. 35:13; Ex.39:36, etc.) or lehem hamma‘, lit. ‘bread of ordering’ (1 Ch. 9:32, etc.).

The term “continual bread” refers to its perpetual offering (Num 4:7).

The idea of “showbread” (KJV shewbread) refers to the arrangement of the bread in rows on the table (1 Chr 9:32; 1 Chr 23:29; 1 Chr.28:16; 2 Chr 2:4; 2 Chr.13:11; 2Chr 29:18).

RD/Heb 133c

So first of all, let’s look at the names for the table of showbread.   In the Hebrew the spelling is different.  You probably read this when you were young.  When I was young,  I would read shewbread (s-h-e-w) and wonder what in the world that was and how that differed from show (s-h-o-w).  But it’s just the archaic English spelling.  The Hebrew is the word lehem happanim.   Lehem is the word for bread just like you have in the city - baked lehem  – the house of bread, Bethlehem.  Leham happanim  -  panim means face and the “ha” at the beginning is the article in the Hebrew.  So it literally means bread of the face - that is bread that is set before the face or the presence of the God.  The face of God of course (as we’ve studied for those of you who survived and made it through on Tuesday night with our in-depth discussion on figures of speech) that the face of God is an anthropomorphism.  God doesn’t have a face as men have faces.  This is an idiom for the presence of God.  So the bread is set before the face of God or the presence of God.  Some passages it’s referred to as lehem hammarecket which means the bread of the ordering.  That’s mentioned in I Chronicles 9:32.

In Numbers 4:7 it’s described as the “continual bread” because there was always to be this offering of the showbread on the table before God.  Each Sabbath it would be taken down and replaced by fresh bread and the bread that had been out for a week would not have grown stale anymore than the manna would have grown stale overnight on the Sabbath and the rest of the week it did or that the Israelites clothes wore out during the time in the wilderness.  God kept it fresh so that the priests would have bread at the end of the week.  The bread would go to feed the priests.  So it was always to be before the presence of God; so it’s called continual bread.  It’s a perpetual offering to the Lord according to Numbers 4:7.

The idea of showbread is that it refers to the arrangement of bread in rows in orderly display before God as it’s mentioned in several passages in the Old Testament.  Although the table of showbread, the altar of incense and the golden lampstand are not in the Holy of Holies itself - which is actually where the Shekinah dwelt between the cherubs, God is enthroned between the cherubs on the Mercy Seat - because they were just outside of the Holy of Holies, they were spoken of as being in the presence of God.  They were before God’s presence.  That’s an important thing to note when we think about our passage in Hebrews (just so you didn’t forget that we are studying Hebrews on Thursday night. In our study of Hebrews 9 we’re diverting ourselves just a little bit to go back and study the Tabernacle so we can make a little more sense of what is taught in Hebrews 9.)

In Hebrews 9:2 we read;

NKJ Hebrews 9:2 For a tabernacle was prepared: the first part, in which was the lampstand, the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary;

… or the holy place.

NKJ Hebrews 9:3 and behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All,

NKJ Hebrews 9:4 which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron's rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

Now the golden censer was actually in the outer place; but it’s just up against the veil so that the incense would be drawn into and through the Holy of Holies, a depiction of prayers going up before God.

Now the description of the Temple is given in Leviticus 24:5-9.   There are two central passages for the table of showbread.  They are Exodus 25:23-30 and Leviticus 24:5-9.  In the description in Leviticus 24:5-9 we have a description of what they should do in preparing the bread and establishing it and placing it out on the table.  In verse 5 we read;

NKJ Leviticus 24:5 " And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake.

NKJ Leviticus 24:6 "You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the LORD.

NKJ Leviticus 24:7 "And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the LORD.

Now the frankincense was also to depict the fact that this was of value to the Lord - that it depicts this offering and that it is a pleasing aroma to the Lord.  I have down there in the corner a picture of a bowl of frankincense crystals that we saw when we were going through the chute in Jerusalem.  Actually that’s just cropped from a picture where they had about 24 bowls of different kinds of incense.  But, this way you get to focus on one.   They had all manner of different seasonings.  It’s just an amazing thing to walk through the Arab quarter or the Muslim quarter in Jerusalem.

Verse 8 goes on to say:

NKJ Leviticus 24:8 "Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually,

There’s another reference to continual sacrifice.

being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

NKJ Leviticus 24:9 "And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the LORD made by fire, by a perpetual statute."

That also happens to be the background for what Paul teaches in I Corinthians 9 that just as the priests lived off of the offerings to the Lord - Paul applies that to the New Testament church that the pastor (those who are serving the Lord in vocational ministry) has a right to earn their living from the gospel ministry.  This is his precedent that he uses going back to Leviticus 24:9.

Now what we see in these verses is that the bread consisted of 12 loaves made of the finest flour.  The fact that it is made from the finest flour emphasizes the value of the person of Christ.  There’s no leaven so it’s a picture of His impeccability because leaven is always a picture of sin.  There’re only a couple of passages that indicate that it’s unleavened.  I’ll get to those in a minute.  But, it’s the finest flour.  It pictures the value and the uniqueness of the person (the humanity) of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The second thing we note from these verses is that the bread of the presence consisted of these 12 very large loaves.  Each was made of 1/5th of an ephah of fine flour. Now an ephah is just over a bushel.  So when you make a loaf of bread from one fifth of a bushel of flour that would make a rather substantive loaf of bread.  So each of these loaves represented 2 ½ bushels of finely ground wheat to make these 12 loaves.  They were flat and thin.  They were placed in two rows of 6 each on a table in the holy place before the Lord and then sprinkled with frankincense.   This was a picture also of the value of the offering to the Lord.  Each Sabbath according to Leviticus 24:5-9 each one was removed each Sabbath and new ones were placed there.  The former ones were to be eaten by the priests only in the holy place.  So they were to eat the bread there in the holy place.  Now that’s going to become somewhat important in an episode that we’ll get to a little later on in the New Testament when Jesus takes His disciples and they are eating the grain as they go through the fields.  That’s on the Sabbath and the Pharisees challenged them on that.  We’ll look at that and the background to it in I Samuel 21.

Sin (Cycle of)

The Cycle of Sin

1. Control of the Sin Nature leads to sin/human good.

Result: spiritual dullness.

2. Faith toward God shuts down: forget doctrine, focus on wrong issues, priorities.

Result: Inhale human viewpoint (HVP)/worldliness.

3. Increased arrogance: arrogance skills increase.

Result: Foolish thinking (HVP) dominates, loss of reality due to truth suppression (), mental attitude sins increase.

4. Idolatry: submission to false authorities,Emotion, peer pressure, material possessions, pleasure, escapism, false ideologies/religions.

Result: Anger, frustration, depression, fear leading to self-induced misery and further attempts to mask the misery. This is all part of demon-influence.

Sin (Dynamics of)

Understanding the Dynamics of Our Most Destructive Sins

Fear, Love, Anger, and Hatred:

1. Fear is the core orientation of the sin nature. When Adam sinned, he and Eve were afraid.

, “So he said, ‘I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ ”

2. The antidote to FEAR in Scripture is Trust.

, “Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.

, “In God (I will praise His word), in God I have put my trust; I will not fear. What can flesh do to me?”

, “In God I have put my trust; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

, “He will not be afraid of evil tidings; His heart is steadfast, trusting in the LORD.

, “His heart is established; He will not be afraid, until he sees his desire upon his enemies.”

, “I will love You, O LORD, my strength.

, “The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.

, “I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies.

, “The pangs of death surrounded me, and the floods of ungodliness made me afraid” [

בָּעַת bāʿaṯ = to be terrified].

3. The opposite of FEAR in Scripture is Love.

, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.”

4. Anger comes when we don’t get our way. When something is perceived to block us from achieving what we think will make us happy, will block us from getting what we think will make life work for us.

5. Depression comes when we realize we may never get our way, we may never get what we think we need to be really happy.

6. Hatred comes when we direct our anger toward the person we believe is preventing us from achieving what we think is necessary for life.

Fear leads to anger; anger leads to ...Anger toward God reflected in anger and hatred toward God’s representatives.

Ex. cf.,

7. All of these are the outworking of the self-absorbed orientation of our sin nature.

8. But when our happiness is based on the Lord and not circumstances, events, or people then we can have joy even when everything is taken from us.

, “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”

, “Count it all joy my brethren when you encounter various trials, because you know that the evaluation of your doctrinal application produces endurance and endurance will yield its maturing effect."

, “But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he went out and came in before them.”

, “Then Saul said to David, ‘Here is my older daughter Merab; I will give her to you as a wife. Only be valiant for me, and fight the LORD’S battles.’ For Saul thought, ‘Let my hand not be against him, but let the hand of the Philistines be against him.’ ”

, “But it happened at the time when Merab, Saul’s daughter, should have been given to David, that she was given to Adriel the Meholathite as a wife.”

"The finer the words the greater the deceit. Further, he would rather see the Philistines triumph than David survive.”

~Lange’s Commentary on the Bible

Sin (The resolution of )

Resolution of Sin RD/Matt/142B

There are there are three things that that God does in history that brings a resolution to the problem of sin.

The first is what he did on the cross. On the cross, Jesus Christ died, the just for the unjust, that He might bear in His own body on the tree, our sin, and that by believing in Him and Him alone we can have eternal life. It's a grace gift. We don't do anything to earn it. Scripture says He who knew no sin—perfectly innocent, the spotless Lamb of God—was made sin for us that the righteousness of God might be found in us. That's the first part of the solution. 

The second part of the solution happens at the end of the Tribulation. It is known as the battle, more accurately the campaign, of Armageddon where the forces of the world, the kings of the earth, all of the presidents and the princes and the kings and the businessmen, all of the powers that be are arrayed against God and his Messiah as depicted in Psalm two. Their goal is to destroy God in his Messiah and God will destroy them. That's the second part of the solution as God then establishes his righteous kingdom on the earth.

And then the third and final part of the solution occurs at the end of that thousand year perfect reign of Christ on the earth when the when Satan, who has been incarcerated in the abyss for that thousand years, is released and is able to gather to himself an army of malcontents and those who have rejected God and His grace, they are leading a rebellion against God and against Jesus. They are going to be destroyed with fire and brimstone, and all those who have rejected God and His grace are sent for sent to the lake of fire for eternity. That's the final part.

Sin- Could Jesus

Could Jesus sin? Matthew 013b

1.          Though Jesus has restricted the use of His divine attributes His essential divine nature does not change. He is still fully God. Because He has restricted the use of His attributes doesn’t mean that His nature has changed.

2.          As undiminished deity, as fully God, nevertheless the one person of Jesus in union with humanity could not sin.

3.          It is incorrect to assume that the purpose of the temptation was to see if Jesus would sin. That is not the purpose. An analogy from metallurgy: If you were going to test the quality of gold bullion, when you test it you are not doing it to see if it has changed or if it could be something else; you know. You are just exposing and verifying the quality of what is there. The temptation wasn’t to see if Jesus would sin. But to demonstrate that as Messiah, as the second Adam, he would not sin, and that as John the Baptist had announced He was in deed the Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world.

4.          He demonstrates that as man in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit and the Scriptures He will not sin. That is a great example for us, that we can follow Him in that. As long as we are walking by the Spirit in dependence upon God’s Word we can avoid any kind of temptation and not sin.

5.          How legitimate is the test? It is legitimate because it wasn’t to see if He would sin but to prove or demonstrate His sinlessness. It is lie an experiment. Many people, when they think of the Word experiment, they think of it in one of its sense where it means to test or see what will happen under certain circumstances an to test or evaluate a hypothesis or theory. Experiment is defined as a scientific procedure undertaken to demonstrate a known fact. That is what is going on with the testing of Jesus.

6.          The testing demonstrates that He is sinless and it also shows that as a man He experienced in His humanity the intensity of physical and emotional distress. He is under physical and emotional distress in the testing in His humanity and experiencing all of the limitations in negative circumstances of humanity, and learning the limitations of creaturely capabilities. He is tested in all points, as we are, without sin.

Sin Offering

Sin Offering  RD/Heb/128c

 1. So the first thing we note is that the terminology here is the hata offering which is the word for sin.  It literally means to miss the mark or to miss the target.   It’s used that way in Judges 20:16 when it talks about the left-handed Benjamites who could throw a rock with their sling and not miss the target.  So literally it has that meaning in Judges 20:16.  The target of course when it is applied to sin is the righteousness of God.

NKJ Romans 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

We don’t hit the target and there needs to be a cleansing of sin.  There needs to be an expiation of the guilt and someone else has to do that.  That’s the picture in the purification offering.

   2. So the purpose of this offering is to be cleansed so that fellowship can be restored.  The purification deals with removing the defilement or the impact that sin has had.  All sin known and unknown must be forgiven.    3. The third thing that we note is that the sin offering is not a voluntary sacrifice as the first three were.  This is something that is mandated when somebody sins or if they are rendered unclean. Under those conditions, this offering was required of all.  It’s required of priests.  It’s required of the congregation, the rulers and individuals as you go through and read through the passage.  The focus is always in relation to atonement and forgiveness.  That sin is a crucial word in this cannot be doubted because it is used so many times in chapters 4 and 5.  Chapter 4 is the first time the word is used in Leviticus.    4. So the sin in question is one that was unintentional or one that is out of ignorance.  It is a sin of commission, sin of the high hand.  These are other categories of sin.  This chapter is simply dealing with the sin of unintentional sin.  It’s inadvertent.  It’s not premeditated.  It’s not intentional.

In Genesis 20:9 when Abimelech complains to Abraham… that was a sin of unintentionality.

NKJ Genesis 20:9 And Abimelech called Abraham and said to him, "What have you done to us? How have I offended you, that you have brought on me and on my kingdom a great sin? You have done deeds to me that ought not to be done."

Numbers 24 Balaam is unaware that God was the one who opposed him.  That’s a sin of unintentionality.  But there is a contrast with sins with what the Bible calls sins of the high hand - Numbers 15:30.  So this offering deals with the sin of ignorance.

   5. What happens?  A priest brings a bull, lays a hand on the bull, slaughters the bull, and takes some of the blood to the tent. Inside the Holy of Holies he dips his finger in the blood and splatters the blood 7 times before the Lord on the veil of the sanctuary.  The priest was then to go out and put some of the blood on the horns of the altar as a fragrant incense.  All of the blood of the bull was then to be poured out at the base of the burnt offering.    But then all of the fat of the entrails, the kidneys, the loins, and the liver were to be offered up in the smoke of the burnt offering.  But, the hide, the flesh, the head, the legs and the entrails and guts were to be taken to a clean place outside the camp where they were mixed with the ashes from the other offering.  They are poured out and these parts were then burned on the wood with fire.  The picture there is that the sin is removed from the individual.  The guilt is removed.  He is separated from the guilt.  There it is dealt with completely and totally so that all of the sacrifice is consumed.    6. Now in the sin offering different animals were used.  A bull was used for the High Priest or for the congregation, a male goat for the ruler, a female goat or lamb for the common person.  But, if they were poor they could also bring a pigeon or a turtle dove or if they were the poorest of the poor a tenth of an ephah of flour could be brought.  So in other cases, for example with the congregational sin the elders would lay their hands on the head of a bull.  They would also splatter the blood in the Tent of Meeting.  In the case of the sin of the ruler, the goat was a male without defect.  It could not be a female.  It had to be a male without defect.  It’s slaughtered before the altar.  The blood is not taken into the Tent of Meeting, but it’s all applied to the horns of the altar and then poured out on the base.   With the sin for the individual, he would bring a goat, a female goat (notice not male or female but in this case a female goat) without defect or a lamb (a female without defect) and then the blood was put on the horns of the altar and the rest of it poured out.  This describes the confession (we would say offering) offering.  This is the restoration to fellowship. 

Sins (Mental Attitude)

These mental attitude sins develop in several different areas. Gen. 91b

There are four complexes.

First there is the fear complex. Fear is motivated with the sense that our security, our stability, our future, our physical safety is threatened, our emotional safety is threatened, our future plans and hopes and dreams are threatened. Fear often goes along with several other mental attitude sins such as worry, anxiety, and dread. We obsess that things can go wrong. So fear links up with worry, anxiety, dread, and then often if we feed it and don’t deal with it instantly in terms of confession and application of doctrine, claiming promises, then it can develop into a general pessimism about life. As fear develops we think that things are just going to go wrong, and when things do go wrong it is just a self-fulfilling prophecy and we are convinced that everything will go wrong. And yet the Scripture constantly challenges the believer to hope. Hope is positive; hope is a confident expectation of a glorious future. That doesn’t mean that we have our heads in the clouds somewhere, thinking that everything is just going to be wonderful, but the believer has a true realism because of understanding of the world, the cosmic system, and what is going on, but at the same time he knows that God is in control and can have an optimistic confidence in the midst of negative circumstances. It is a true and real confidence based upon Bible doctrine.

Fear often operates at core level, along with anger or frustration. When people feel like their life is threatened or their agenda is blocked, they don’t get their way, how do they respond? They get irritated. If irritation is not dealt with through application of doctrine it leads to anger. When serious things occur in life that prevent us from achieving our goals, whatever they may be, then fear can develop into anger.

Second complex of mental attitude sins that often plague us are related to envy. Jealousy and envy develops from a covetousness, lust for material things, lust for money, lust for the things that money can buy, like the status, the prestige. The materialism classified in the Bible as covetousness and greed are linked with idolatry in two passages: Colossians 3:5 and Ephesians 5:5. When we are operating on material lust and money lust that is putting money and material things in the place of God.

Then Third comes the vengeance complex. This is what happens when we perceive that someone rejects us or maltreats us, and perhaps they actually have, but instead of relying upon God to handle things from the Supreme Court of Heaven we give in to revenge, we nurture thoughts of hate and malice, we look forward to certain ways that they will suffer so that we can enjoy their suffering because of the suffering that they have brought into our own lives. We become resentful when they seem to do well and we don’t.

There is the (Fourth) bitterness complex. There is a progression here. We go from fear and anxiety and it is often expressed in one direction toward the envy complex. In another direction that can be expressed in the vengeance complex, and then when nothing seems to happen or this state of affairs goes on and we continue in carnality, nurturing our mental attitude sins, then what happens is bitterness. Bitterness destroys the soul. Bitterness generates even more intense hatred. We become resentful of others, and negative and pessimistic about others’ happiness or success. We become resentful of those who are applying the Word and seem to have stability in their lives. We become angry at God and angrier at other people, and then we begin to blame others for personal problems.

At the core of all this is that we are just absorbed with our own live, our own problems, our own circumstances and our own failures. And we are blaming everybody in the world but ourselves and our own volition. God never promised us a life without problems, heartache, or difficulties, but He said in the midst of those difficulties and disappointments He would teach us where the real source of security and happiness and stability was to be found; and that is in His character. So that is what we see going on at the foundation of this passage in Genesis 15. God is reminding Abraham of His faithfulness. He reiterates the promise of a seed in the first five verses, and then starting in verse 7 He is reiterating the promise of the land, that no matter how uncertain and unstable things may appear at times for Abraham, He was giving this land to him to possess it, to inherit it.

Sins, Principles of

Five Key Principles on Sin     RD/Heb. 063b

   1. No sin is unknown by the omniscience of God.  God’s omniscience knows every single sin you and I will ever commit at any time.  We never surprise God.  We never shock God.  You may surprise yourself.  You may shock your spouse. You may scare your children, but it doesn’t surprise, shock or scare God. He knew about it in eternity past.

   2. Therefore no sin is overlooked by the justice of God.  When Jesus Christ died on the cross He could pay the price for every sin because God the Father knew every sin.  When He wrote the indictment and the list of debts that He nailed to the cross it has got every one there.  He didn’t miss one.  You are not going to wake up tomorrow and commit some sin and oops, God forgot to put it there.

   3. No sin is too bad for the grace of God.  Every sin is equally bad in terms of its violation of God’s righteous standard.  There is no sin that is any worse.  It is interesting if you study the history of different cultures that everybody has their set of bad sins.  You look at the history of America.  You go back to the 1700’s and ask people what they thought were the worst things they could do.  They would come up with their list.  Get into the 1800’s and the number one sin in some areas of the country was to own a slave.  If you owned a slave you couldn’t be spiritual.  You couldn’t have anything to do with God.  That is the worst sin you commit.  Then you get into the early 20th century and if you had evil demon rum cross your lips, then you couldn’t commit a worse sin.  I ran across a survey done years ago by Christianity Today which was done in 1950-1951 near the beginning of that publication.  They did a survey and it was like 95% of Christians surveyed believed it was a sin to drink wine.  In the early 80’s they had the same survey.  95% of the Christians surveyed said it was not a sin to drink wine.  That is a major shift.  That is a 180 done by evangelicals in America.  Either that or they went down to the local tavern the second time and interviewed all the Christians down there.  It really was a shift.  Culturally we define sin differently.  You get into the early 21st century the great sin according to Michael Bloomberg is to smoke.  He is committing $21 million of his personal fortune to fund a stop smoking campaign.  Smoking is the big #1 or #2 evil sin.  Every generation, every culture has their different nasty sins.  These things are relative.  That is the point I am making.  You may think that smoking is not so bad.  Maybe you can’t wait to get out of here and have a good cigar.  A person across the room thinks that if you light up a cigar you are going to hell.  Everybody has their personal tastes and personal pleasures and trends of the sin nature.  But for God all sin is equally evil.  No sin is too bad for the grace of God to deal with.  Grace is going to solve the problem.

   4. No sin is too strong for the omnipotence of God.

   5. No sin is too harsh not be overcome by the love of God.  The love of God is going to find a way to solve the sin problem.  There are consequences to sin even in the life of the believer and even if you operate on grace there are consequences to sin.  There are the natural consequences which come as a result of reaping what you sow.  Then there are additional consequences that come from divine discipline.  What we read here is an extremely serious warning that you can dabble in carnality to such a degree and start wallowing in the cesspool of your own sin to the point where God leaves you to your own negative volition to reap all the consequences you can right to the point of the sin unto death and there won’t be a recovery.  It is not that He can’t.  It’s not that you can’t; it is that you won’t.    You get to a point-of-no-return and apart from the grace of God and apart from God permitting, there will not be a recovery.  That is the point.  That is why this is a warning.  It is serious.  Believers have to pay attention to this - not to take their spiritual life lightly.

Six requirements of Apostle

The Six Requirements for Apostleship:  RD/Gal/009

a) An apostle of Jesus Christ must be Jewish. They were sent out originally to the house of Israel, Matthew 10:6, before the church age; this was the limited use of apostle. According to Deuteronomy 18:9 cf. Romans 3:1, 2; Matthew 10:1-5, the Scriptures were given to Israel. Israel was specifically given the custodianship of the revelation of God, so the apostles who would deliver more revelation had to be of the nation Israel.

b) An apostle must have received a call and a commissioned to his office directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 1:1 cf. .

c) An apostle must have been an eyewitness of the Lord Jesus Christ in His teaching, John 15:27; Luke 22:28; Acts 1:21, 22. Paul made it clear that he met this requirement as an apostle, 1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8; .

d) An apostle must possess authority in communicating divine revelation. What he says is not up to a vote, it came directly from God. What he wrote under divine inspiration was indeed the voice of God and carries the authority of God. 1 Corinthians 2:10; Galatians 1:11, 12 cf. .

e) An apostle was required to furnish the signs of an apostle. He performed certain miracles which were his calling cards; they provided credentials for his claim to be an apostle.

f) An apostle possessed complete authority among all the churches.

Six requirements to be an apostle  RD/Gal/002

1.       An apostle of Jesus Christ must be a Jew. He had to be from Messiah’s nation.

2.       An apostle must have received a specific call and commission to his office directly from Christ. The nature of his office: he had full plenary powers, full authority. This was the highest rank in the church age. The precedent was set by the Lord Himself in Luke 6:13 NASB “And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles.” Paul elaborates on this in 2 Corinthians, and especially here in .

3.       They must have been an eyewitness of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ and have heard His teaching. If they were to be foundational witnesses to Jesus Christ and what He taught then it was necessary for them to know a) what He taught, and b) to have seen His public ministry while He was alive on the earth. (Paul was probably among the Pharisees and scribes who were arguing with Jesus during Jesus’ time on the earth) Paul made is specifically clear that he was an apostle.1 Corinthians 9:1; 15:8; .

4.       An apostle must possess authority in communicating divine revelation. When an apostle spoke it was “Thus saith the Lord.” He was the mouthpiece for God; he gave absolute truth. What he wrote from divine revelation was directly from the mind of God. .

5.       An apostle is required to furnish the signs of the apostles. 2 Corinthians 12:12 NASB “The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and miracles.” All of these things authenticated their message. They demonstrated the veracity of their message.

6.       An apostle possessed plenary authority among all the churches. Peter, for example, judged Ananias and Sapphira on the basis of his authority as an apostle. Paul asserted his responsibilities over all of the churches, 2 Corinthians 11:28 NASB “Apart from {such} external things, there is the daily pressure on me {of} concern for all the churches. And he dictated to the different churches what they should do in various, e.g. disciplinary matters such as in Corinth in 1 Corinthians 5:3. They had authority to tell every local church congregation how to conduct their business.

In summary, apostleship was a unique spiritual gift that was sovereignly delegated by the Lord Jesus Christ and distributed by the Holy Spirit, 1 Corinthians 12:27, 28; Ephesians 4:11; Colossians 1:1. In the pre-canon period of the church age certain spiritual gifts such as apostleship were necessary in order to communicate the revelation about the church age and the unique spiritual life of the church age because they didn’t have it written down yet. Once it was all written down it was no longer necessary for these people to continue their function—apostleship, prophecies, healing and tongues, for example. Apostles were not appointed until after the resurrection of Christ and they did not really become operational until the day of Pentecost when the church age began. Galatians 1:1 NASB “Paul, an apostle (not {sent} from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead).” The reason he mentions resurrection here is because Paul himself was commissioned by the resurrected Christ, and he is reminding his readers of his testimony of how he came to know the Lord on the road to Damascus when Jesus Christ appeared to him.

Sluggard, The

The sluggard Proverbs 022c

1.  The sluggard is irresponsible, lazy, slow to work, refuses to make haste.  NASB “Go to the ant, O sluggard, Observe her ways and be wise, [7] Which, having no chief, Officer or ruler, [8] Prepares her food in the summer {And} gathers her provision in the harvest.” The word “sluggard” is the Hebrew word asel, which means to be slow, sluggish, lazy. It is used one time as a verb in the book of Judges (18:9). There is the episode of civil war breaking out against the tribe of Dan, and as the priest in the story calls upon the other tribes to come up and attack the Danites they hesitate. There is that word. Don’t hesitate to go into battle; don’t be slow; don’t be sluggish. The word is used 16 times in Wisdom literature in order to describe the person who is lazy, irresponsible, and only does on a daily basis what they are supposed to do.

An illustration is given in NASB “I passed by the field of the sluggard And by the vineyard of the man lacking sense [devoid of understanding], [31] And behold, it was completely overgrown with thistles; Its surface was covered with nettles, And its stone wall was broken down. [32] When I saw, I reflected upon it; I looked, {and} received instruction. [33] ‘A little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of the hands to rest,’ [34] Then your poverty will come {as} a robber And your want like an armed man.”

The wise person is going to learn from the slothful person but the slothful person won’t learn anything from the diligent, wise worker.  The result is that poverty will sneak up like a robber to steal and take from you all that you have.

2.  The sluggard lacks initiative and drive. In other words, when he is not being supervised he is just a man-pleaser. When there is no one over him he defaults to doing nothing. Thus they are stealing money and time from their employer.   NASB “Slaves, in all things obey those who are your masters on earth, not with external service, as those who {merely} please men, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.”

He often makes up excuses for why he can’t accomplish things. NASB “The sluggard says, ‘There is a lion outside; I will be killed in the streets!’” That is, something could happen. I could go outside and fail. I may lose something. He makes up excuses for not getting his responsibilities done.

3.  The sluggard procrastinates. Why do today what we can put of until tomorrow? That is the sign of the sluggard. He lives for today, makes no preparation for tomorrow and just hopes that somehow it will just take care of itself. Again, we need to draw an important distinction in the life of a believer. We live day-to-day. We live for today, we are not going to worry for tomorrow. We are not going to succumb to mental attitude sins of anxiety, fear, worry about the future. That is in the Lord’s hands. On the other hand we do have a responsibility to prepare for the future. A classic example of this in Scripture is of Joseph when he was in prison in Egypt and God gave him the vision of what would happen in the future. There would come this terrible famine that would be preceded by seven years of plenty. During that time of plenty they took extra and stored it in the storehouses, and when the time of the famine came they had stored in savings all that would be needed to get them through. The sluggard doesn’t do that. He is too distracted by not doing anything today to worry about tomorrow.

NASB “The sluggard does not plow after the autumn, So he begs during the harvest and has nothing.” The ant will lay up for itself all during the summer, and then when the winter comes he has provided for himself. Ants have success in many different environments. It is due to their social organization. They work as a team and they do the same thing day in and day out. There is something about that regularity, that consistency that is part of the illustration of their value in terms of labor. Ants never fight among themselves; they always work as a team and always attack a common enemy. When they are working together everything gets out of their way. The ant lays up for the future, and that is an illustration that we should be providing and saving for the future.

4.  The sluggard delights in sleep. He delights in entertainment and distraction, rather than focusing on work and responsibility. He is more concerned about what is going to happen in terms of recreation and social life after work than in carrying out his responsibilities at work. . The writer is so sarcastic.

5.  The sluggard is looking for easy money and easy riches. NASB “He who tills his land will have plenty of food, But he who follows empty {pursuits} will have poverty in plenty.” He thinks that somehow it is just going to happen, and that they don’t have to be diligent and follow the principles of labor that God has embedded within the social structure of creation.

NASB “In all labor there is profit, But mere talk {leads} only to poverty.”

6.  The sluggard produces many destructive unintended consequences. He thinks he is just being lazy for himself, but it hurts his family, his co-workers, those around him.

NASB “He also who is slack [slothful] in his work Is brother to him who destroys.” He destroys wealth, productivity, the home because he fails to provide things that should be provided for.

Son of Man

The Son of Man   RD/Rev 194

This title occurs 81 times in the Gospels. It’s used by Jesus every time except John 12:34.

Why did Jesus use this title for Himself more than any other? Because it’s ambiguous. It reveals and conceals.

It is an idiom asserting humanity, “man” (Ps. 8:4; Ezekiel)

Or, it is a title for the Messiah, the Son of Man in Daniel 7:13 who comes to rule over the earth.

Authority – “But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . .” (Mark 2:10)

Exaltation – “But Jesus kept silent, and the high priest said to Him, ‘I adjure You by the living God, that You tell us whether you are the Christ, the Son of God.’ Jesus said to them, ‘You have said it yourself; nevertheless I tell you, hereafter you shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.’ Then the high priest tore his robes, saying, ‘He has blasphemed! What further need do we have of witnesses? Behold, you have now heard the blasphemy.” (Matt. 26:63–65)

Sons of Jacob or Israel

Sons of Jacob or Israel       RD/Heb/184-185

So let’s just start and go through the blessing and hit some of the high points as we come to understand God's plan and purpose for the nation of Israel.  The first one is Reuben.  The key word for Reuben is instability and mediocrity - instability and mediocrity.  Of Reuben of Reuben Jacobs says Rueben:

NKJ Genesis 49:3 "Reuben, you are my firstborn, My might and the beginning of my strength, The excellency of dignity and the excellency of power.

So he's going to have a measure of strength and power; and then he is going to compromise that through his instability.

NKJ Genesis 49:4 Unstable as water, you shall not excel, Because you went up to your father's bed; Then you defiled it -- He went up to my couch.

Sin wiped out his potential.  Sin destroyed every bit of potential of strength that he had and because he defiled his father's bed…  See he as the firstborn he thought he would assert himself in some sort of what appears to us to be rather perverse act.  He went in and seduced his father’s wife and defiled the marriage bed.  But it was an act of asserting his own right to power and to the inheritance.  So because of that, the marriage bed was defiled.  So Reuben was the first born of Jacob and Leah and his name means basically “behold a son.”  As her first son she names him with a name that sounds like the meaning of “behold a son.”  As such, Reuben was due the double portion of the first born son as his inheritance.  Thus the inheritance of the father would be divided up among 13 portions for the 12 sons and two of those portions would have gone to Reuben based on Deuteronomy 21:17.  But because he defiled his father's bed according to 1 Chronicles 5:1-2, his birthright was given to the sons of Joseph so that the genealogy would go - or the blessing would go through the descendants of Joseph.  That’s in 1 Chronicles 5:1-2. 

So Reuben lost his double portion, and he lost his leadership position because of instability.  He had gone into… actually he went into Bilhah his father’s concubine in Genesis 35:22 in order to assert his own position. 

You see this same kind of strange thing happen with David and Absalom later on.  Absalom is going to take his father's wives in order to show that he is the one who is rightfully king.  So there's always this kind of a perverted thing that comes out of the two of the ancient Near Eastern context culture. 

Because of his inherent instability, this instability shapes the destiny of his tribe.  For example Dathan and Abiram who will lead a rebellion against Moses and Aaron.  They join with the Korah rebellion and they (Dathan and Abiram) are both part of the tribe of Reuben according to Numbers 16. 

Later on in the conquest, the Reubenites become impatient for land.  So rather than waiting for the distribution of land after they cross over to Jordan, they want to get their land first on the eastside of the Jordan.  God nevertheless mandated that they continue to fight and help their brothers on the west side of the Jordan as they conquered the Canaanites.  So they were unwilling to wait for the best land and along with Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh they really chose second best.  So they show this impatience and instability.

Later on in Judges 4 they are indecisive in the battle against Cicera.  We also see in the census that’s taken in Numbers 1 compared to Numbers 26, they were one of the only tribes to decrease in their number.  Later on they fell into apostasy and in 722 when the Northern Kingdom was destroyed they were taken into captivity by Tiglath-Pileser according to 1 Chronicles 25 and 26.  Nothing is mentioned of them again.  They just sort of vanish.

The Moabite Stone which we've studied him recently in light of the war between the King of Israel at the time of Ahaziah there in 1 Kings 3 or 4 and they’re fighting with the king of Moab there's no mention of Rueben when they list  the tribes on the Moabite Stone.  So this indicates that by that time they are pretty much irrelevant in the tribe of Israel.  

Let’s skip over a couple of slides here to a map.  This shows the territory that they were initially given which is just to the east of the northern half of the Dead Sea.  This today is part of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan; and it covers a pretty desolate area – Mt. Nebo where Moses went up in order to see the land and where he died is located within the tribal allotment to Reuben.  This basically gets lost (taken over by, yielded) to the Moabites.  Moab is just to their south.

Then we come to the next the two tribes that are mentioned: the tribe of Simeon and the tribe of Levi.  The Hebrew is shimeon or shemon and leve.  The Hebrew tends to put the accent on the last syllable.  These two brothers just had horrible sin natures which is highlighted in what Jacob says in verses 5 through 7. 

NKJ Genesis 49:5 "Simeon and Levi are brothers; Instruments of cruelty are in their dwelling place.

NKJ Genesis 49:6 Let not my soul enter their council; Let not my honor be united to their assembly;

He just doesn’t want to have anything to do with these two lovely sons of his.

For in their anger they slew a man, And in their self-will they hamstrung an ox.

NKJ Genesis 49:7 Cursed be their anger, for it is fierce; And their wrath, for it is cruel! I will divide them in Jacob And scatter them in Israel.

The point that is being made here is because of the sinfulness of these two brothers - because they are so cruel - that their descendants are not going to have a significant tribal allotment.  Now there's going to be a distinction made between Simeon and Levi because Levi will be the progenitor of the priestly tribe.  But they will still not have an inheritance in the land.  They will be scattered and the Levites will live throughout the land of Israel.  The tribe of Simeon will also be dissipated even though they are initially given a tribal allotment that will disappear. 

So let's take them one at a time. Simeon this is second son born to Jacob and Leah.  His name relates to the Hebrew word, the Hebrew verb to hear shama.  Leah gave him this name because of the hope she expressed at his birth that she stated Genesis 29:33. NKJ Genesis 29:33 Then she conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Because the LORD has heard that I am unloved, He has therefore given me this son also." And she called his name Simeon.

Now what she's referring to is the fact that Jacob really didn’t want to marry her and she wasn’t his favorite.  So that wasn’t the one he wanted to marry. 

So she's saying, “Because Jacob really ignores me and treats me poorly because his favorite is Rachel, God has blessed me by giving me a son.  He has heard of my distress.”

So Simeon’s name was a reminder of that.  Now when the text here describes them as brothers (Simeon and Levi are brothers.), that's sort of odd because there are six sons to Jacob and to Leah.  So why does God through Jacob emphasize this?  He's emphasizing the fact that their character is similar.  They’re grouped together here and coupled together as a team because they shared similar sin nature trends, trends towards anger and bitterness and vindictiveness and cruelty.  They seem to have been motivated by a deep seeded anger.  So this was particularly seen in that just horrific and perverse episode that occurred back in Genesis – I think it was chapter 36 when Dinah is – chapter 34 – when Dinah is raped by Shechem the son of Hamor and these two (Simeon and Levi) come up with a plan to wreak vengeance upon the inhabitants of Shechem by having all of the men in the town faking an alliance with them that they will have this wedding.  They will all be invited, but first they have to be circumcised.  So after all the men are circumcised and being laid up in post operative pain, then Levi and Simeon came in and killed them all.  So this is what is referred to there in verses 6 and 7 is their anger and their self will and their anger and their cruelty.  Because of this, the consequence is going to be that they're going to be removed from any kind of position of political influence in Israel.  They will be dispersed and scattered among the various tribes in Israel.  So Levi had no possession whatsoever.   

Simeon is given a territorial possession down… as you see it’s the blue area in the south, completely surrounded by the green area which was the tribal allotment to Judah.  Simeon included the area of Ziklag and Beersheba; and yet Simeon sort of dissipated and intermarried in Judah and it’s not long into the history of the Southern Kingdom that Simeon basically disappears into the tribe of Judah. 

So they don't have any real significance.  Now later on during the time of the divided kingdom what remained of the Simeonites moved so far south of the land of Edom that they eventually began to intermarry there and also lost much of their identity in relationship to having a distinct possession.

Now Levi is a tribe of priests.  God is going to bless them.  Levi is the third son born to Jacob and Leah.  His name means attached or joined and this was a pun based on Leah’s feelings of rejection by Jacob.  It was given to him also because of the hope that Leah expressed at the time his birth that somehow this would make her more attractive to Jacob. 

In Genesis 29:34 we read:

NKJ Genesis 29:34 She conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Now this time my husband will become attached to me, because I have borne him three sons." Therefore his name was called Levi.

Now originally the Levites were not priests.  That did not come about for another 400 years until the time of year of their Jewish redemption, deliverance from slavery in Egypt.  At that time is when the Levitical tribe was set aside and this was inaugurated with a specific covenant with the tribe of Levi mentioned in Numbers 18:19.  This meant that none of the Levites would have any inheritance directly within the tribes.  They would be scattered among all the tribes and it was the responsibility of the other tribes to provide for the support of the priests and Levites. 

Then we come to the next key prophecy, and that's the prophecy related to Judah.  Judah is the most significant of course because of the messianic implications of this particular prophecy which begins in verse 8. 

NKJ Genesis 49:8 "Judah, you are he whom your brothers shall praise; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies;

…indicating a position of conquest.

Your father's children shall bow down before you.

NKJ Genesis 49:9 Judah is a lion's whelp; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He bows down, he lies down as a lion; And as a lion, who shall rouse him?

Then verse 10:

NKJ Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah,

…indicating that this would be the tribe that produced the rulers of Israel.

Never would that disappear.  They would always have a ruler on the throne which of course foreshadows the Lord Jesus Christ who is from the tribe of Judah. 

Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.

NKJ Genesis 49:11 Binding his donkey to the vine, And his donkey's colt to the choice vine, He washed his garments in wine, And his clothes in the blood of grapes.

Now this last verse as we’ll see in a minute has definite allusions to what is going to happen when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and destroys His enemies.  That whole imagery of washing His garments in wine - we touched on this Tuesday night in Revelation 19 when the Lamb returns.  It’s as if His robes are dipped in blood.  We’ll see in other passengers that picture Him coming up from Edom.  His initial return is to Bozrah and as He returns, brings the Jews from Bozrah to Jerusalem.  His garments are stained with blood.  Blood is the color of wine or wine is the color of blood reminiscent of that.  So that's the picture here.  He washed garments in wine and His clothes in the blood of grapes.  So this is an allusion and a prophecy related to the Messiah coming, the Messiah from the tribe of Judah who will come and will bring about this blood bath that occurs at the end of the tribulation period. 

Genesis 49:12 concludes that prophecy. 

NKJ Genesis 49:12 His eyes are darker than wine, And his teeth whiter than milk.

So as we look at these verses, I just want to point out a few things about Judah.  Judah is going to be a leader of his brothers.   This was indicated by the initial statement made when Leah named him. 

Genesis 29:35 says:

NKJ Genesis 29:35 And she conceived again and bore a son, and said, "Now I will praise the LORD." Therefore she called his name Judah. Then she stopped bearing.

So Judah is formed on a root that has the idea of praise, a root word that has the idea of praise or sounds like it means praise.  He's called this so his brother's will praise him because of his leadership.   He showed some failures later or but in Genesis 44 after Joseph has been taken to Egypt he begins to show some leadership in relation to the famine and Benjamin.  This shows that even though he was pretty messed up earlier, this aspect of his character began to manifest itself. 

In the wilderness march when Israel came out of the Land, the tribe of Judah went first in order of march according to Numbers 10:14. 

Also, Judah had the largest tribal allotment in Canaan as well was the largest population according to Numbers 1 and Numbers 26. 

So when we look at the promise related to the lion aspect, this is tied in when we get to Revelation 5:5.

NKJ Revelation 5:5 But one of the elders said to me, "Do not weep. Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has prevailed to open the scroll and to loose its seven seals."

So Jesus is the lion of the tribe of Judah.  This directly fulfills the promise, the prophecy of verses 10 and 12.

NKJ Genesis 49:10 The scepter shall not depart from Judah, Nor a lawgiver from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes; And to Him shall be the obedience of the people.

Now this phrase related to the coming of Shiloh is a term that has a certain level of uncertainty.  Generally, it is taken that Shiloh is a title up for the Messiah, for the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore He is often referred to as Shiloh.  But there is also is another school of thought that sees the meaning of Shiloh as meaning “to whom it belongs” and looks at a passage where this word is used in Ezekiel 21:27 which states:

NKJ Ezekiel 21:27 Overthrown, overthrown, I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, Until He comes whose right it is, And I will give it to Him." '

Or “who's right it is or who it belongs and I will give it to him.”  The ancient Greek translation of the Septuagint interpreted Shiloh in this way that it really means to whom it belongs.  So that way Shiloh would not be taken as a as a title, but the Genesis 49:10 would be translated “Nor a law giver from between his feet until He who's right it is comes.”  That is again a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ.  I think the evidence from the Hebrew fits that interpretation better than the view that Shiloh is a personal name for the Lord Jesus Christ even though there's a lot of discussion and debate on that, that seems to me to be the best solution.  

We look at the tribal allotment here.  Again you can see in the lower left side to the west of the Dead Sea - see the green area.  That's the area shaded for Judah all the way from Jerusalem in the northwest across to the to the Mediterranean and all of the area to the south including all of what is now the Gaza Strip as well as the area of the Palestinian territory down round Hebron and those areas around Bethlehem.  All of that would be part of the tribe of Judah. 

Now we have several phrases in here that are of significance I think prophetically.  First of all in verse 11 we have the phrase “binding his donkey to the vine and his donkey’s colt to the choice vine.”  This certainly relates to a language related to a colt and vine that we find the Lord used a lot in relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ when He returns because this is language that is used to speak to the prosperity and the blessing that is used and that describes the Millennial Kingdom.  Normally you would not be tying a colt to a vine because most vines aren’t very thick and they’re not very sturdy.  It wouldn't be long before you came back and find that the colt has wandered off, pulled itself lose from the vine.  This indicates that the choice vine is so thick and so strong and producing so much that it's so prosperous that the colt can’t get lose.  So this was to indicate the idiom of the prosperity, the strength of the vines and how prosperous the land was.

Then the next phrase:

And his clothes in the blood of grapes.

 …foreshadows various passages such as Isaiah 63:3:

NKJ Isaiah 63:3 " I have trodden the winepress alone, And from the peoples no one was with Me. For I have trodden them in My anger, And trampled them in My fury; Their blood is sprinkled upon My garments, And I have stained all My robes.

This is used when the Lord prophetically pictures the Messiah coming to destroy the enemies of Israel.  This is fulfilled in Revelation 19:13.  So, this indicates again the future role of Judah to rule and reign in Israel.

Now that brings us to the next a key person which is Zebulun.  There's not a lot that is said about Zebulun in the Scriptures so I think we can move through Zebulun and Issachar rather rapidly. 

Zebulun it says:

NKJ Genesis 49:13 "Zebulun shall dwell by the haven of the sea; He shall become a haven for ships, And his border shall adjoin Sidon.

Now when we look at his birth, he is called Zebulun because God has again blessed Leah.  He is the 6th son though.  It skips over Issachar and Zebulun is treated first here, them Issachar. 

Genesis 30:20 Leah says:

NKJ Genesis 30:20 And Leah said, "God has endowed me with a good endowment; now my husband will dwell with me, because I have borne him six sons." So she called his name Zebulun.

Zebid is the Hebrew for gift.  That’s the root of ZBD the three letter root.  So this is her hope that this will change the relationship that she has with Jacob.  She must have really loved Jacob; but Jacob doesn’t seem to have treated her very well. 

According to the map here we see the tribe of Zebulun is actually given this territory - rather land locked.  He’s not against the sea.  It is just below the top of the area…Asher is here and here’s Tyre and this is the area of Lebanon today.  But Zebulun is land locked, doesn't seem to be fulfilling this prophecy about being a haven for ships.  But it does seem to indicate that his border shall adjoin Sidon. 

This would be I think an unfulfilled prophecy.  But during the Millennial Kingdom Zebulun’s land will go to sea.  This is the area of Haifa a tremendous seaport, the only natural seaport in Israel and so during the Millennial Kingdom Zebulun’s land will go to the Mediterranean; and that is when this will be fulfilled.

The next one that is mentioned is Issachar who is the one.  Issachar is then mentioned in the next couple of verses related to a donkey. 

NKJ Genesis 49:14 "Issachar is a strong donkey, Lying down between two burdens;

NKJ Genesis 49:15 He saw that rest was good, And that the land was pleasant; He bowed his shoulder to bear a burden, And became a band of slaves

Now Issachar’s name means “he will bring great reward.”  He's the 9th son of Jacob and he's the fifth one by Leah. 

NKJ Genesis 30:17 And God listened to Leah, and she conceived and bore Jacob a fifth son.

NKJ Genesis 30:18 Leah said, "God has given me my wages, because I have given my maid to my husband." So she called his name Issachar.

She thinks of this as a reward.  He's called a great donkey or a great ass as one translation has it.  That's not negative.  The donkey was the main beast of burden.  That was the John Deere tractor of the ancient world so this is a great compliment when it compares him to donkey.  He is useful.  He is of great strength, and he accomplishes a lot.  But he fails because he also tends to have a strain of laziness.  The text says he lies down between two burdens meaning that he doesn't carry them.  He is somewhat like Reuben who is unstable.  He is strong, but he's unstable so he doesn't live up to his potential and never accomplishes it. 

Now notice the tribal territory of Issachar here is in that area toward the end of the of valley of Armageddon The Valley as Ezdralon includes the area of Mount Morah where Gideon’s 300 fought and Mount Tabor which is where Deborah and Barak fought in this area.  Many events in the Old Testament happened within the tribal allotment of Issachar.  This is also the same area roughly where the city of Jezreel was located.  So Issachar is at the heart of the Northern Kingdom in terms of tribal allotment.  Yet Issachar had all that power was in such a great position and never really utilized it.

Now that takes us through about the first half of the sons.  Next time we’ll get into the next son which is Dan which has some interesting things about him especially since he's identified with a serpent and a viper in verse 17.  There are those who've indicated that they think that means that is from the tribe of Dan that the false prophet comes.  We’ll look at that when we come back next time.

This time we'll start with the tribe of Dan in verse 16. 

The chapter begins:

NKJ Genesis 49:1 And Jacob called his sons and said, "Gather together, that I may tell you what shall befall you in the last days:

Now remember the term “last days” has to be understood dispensationally.  Are we talking about the last days of Israel which would be Daniel’s 70th week or are we talking about the last days of the church or is it a term that is simply a synonym used in a generic sense for the future?  I think that in this chapter it's more of that sense.  It’s not so much a technical eschatological term for the last days in Israel or certainly not the last days of the church.  But I think it focuses on various trends and characteristics within the descendants of these sons and the tribes that come from them. 

In verse 28 we read:

NKJ Genesis 49:28 All these are the twelve tribes of Israel, and this is what their father spoke to them. And he blessed them; he blessed each one according to his own blessing.

That emphasis on blessing has to do with his statement related to their future and what their destiny would be.  That word blessing in Scripture has various senses.  In some places it's a synonym for praise.  When we “bless” God, that word means to praise Him.  When people are blessed, that has to do with divine grace and provision in their lives.  In context such as this it has to do with the inheritance that is being passed on from father to son. 

We've seen this chart which gives us the line of the seed from Abraham through the promised seed Isaac and then the twins Esau and Jacob.  It passes to the younger.  The elder Esau shall serve the younger Jacob - a principle that we see again in the prophetic section here of Genesis 49 and 48 because it’s the elder Manasseh that serves the younger Ephraim.  So Jacob married Rachel and Leah, Leah first then Rachel.  Through Leah he first had 4 sons: Rueben, Simeon, Levi, Judah.  Then through Rachel’s handmaiden Bilhah he has Dan and Naphtali.  Then through Leah’s handmaid Zilpah he has Gad and Asher.  Then Leah once again conceives Issachar and Zebulon.  Then finally Rachel has Joseph and Benjamin.  So, we’ll be looking at just the last few of these and we're going to start with Dan in verse 16.

Now Dan has an interesting tribal area.  As we see on the map that I have up on the screen, the area that’s originally given to Dan is this green area here that's kind of L-shaped that begins over here on the coastal plains moves through the Shefela which is the coastlands and the foothills of the mountains as you move west into the hill country.  It swings down.  This area – Joppa is modern Tel Aviv.  The area along here - this is really the highway that goes from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem so that was the area originally given to Dan.  But, they never could conquer – they never did conquer the Canaanites that were there and finally about two-thirds of the way through the period of the judges, they decided to look for their own place.  They leave and they migrate through Benjamin.  There's this episode there with the Levite, the priest that is set up there with his private religion and they sort of quasi-kidnapped him.  He goes along willingly and they take him all the way up to the north here to Laish which is then renamed Dan.  They conquer the Canaanites there and the settle up in this northern area of Dan in the far northern part of Israel so that it becomes proverbial when you talk about Israel (the land of Israel) from Dan to Beersheba.  Dan is the far north and Beersheba is down here in the territory of Simeon down in the Negev.   So “from Dan to Beersheba” describes the length of the land.  That's like saying from El Paso to Beaumont for those of you just waking up now.  It covers the whole territory in between.

NKJ Genesis 49:16 "Dan shall judge his people As one of the tribes of Israel.

NKJ Genesis 49:17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, A viper by the path, That bites the horse's heels So that its rider shall fall backward.

NKJ Genesis 49:18 I have waited for your salvation, O LORD!

Now this certainly is a cryptic prophecy.  Just what in the world does this mean?  The word “Dan shall judge his people” is a play on words because the word for judge is very similar to the word for Dan.  So “judge His people” is one of the tribes of Israel.  This is a verb that means to judge or to govern though the word is often translated as judge it is much more inclusive than the modern concept of judging.  It encompasses all facets and functions of government: executive, legislative, and judicial.  The Hebrew-Aramaic lexicon of the Old Testament defines the word as to rule or to control. 

So I'm not really sure how this has played out in history - if it has been fulfilled in history because Dan has never played a significant role.  The tribe of Dan has never played a significant role in the history of Israel.  But, it has played a significant role in the apostasy of Israel because of what happens under Jeroboam I as we studied in our studies on 1 Kings.  So this is a line that doesn't trace the migration that shows the beginning point and their end as they moved forward.

Dan actually is one of the worst of all the tribes of Israel.  It says that he's going to rule in the future and perhaps that has to do with a tribulation fulfillment. There are those who think that this has to do with the fact that the false prophet comes from the tribe of Dan and that may very well be.  The word judge (which means to rule) indicates some sort of authority and since this has never happened historically; then it must happen at some time in the future.

Dan is a tribe - always brought up the rear in Israel.  It was never a primary tribe.  It was the first tribe to go into idolatry and that's described in that bizarre perverted little episode in Judges 18:30.  They were also the last tribe to receive an inheritance in the land which they failed to fully conquer.  They failed to trust God in taking the land.  They assimilated with the Canaanites in the land.  Joshua 19:47-49 describes that and then just about every list of the tribes of Israel that involves merit – Dan is listed last. For example in 1 Chronicles 27 the tribes are listed according to merit and Dan is last.  Dan is not mentioned among the 12 tribes that are listed in Revelation 7 when there is a listing of the 12 tribes and the 12,000 from each of the tribes that go into land.  Rather than Dan you have a reference to Joseph.  Dan is also omitted from genealogy in 1 Chronicles 2-10.  All of that adds up to the fact that Dan is of little significant historically in Israel at least from a positive spiritual viewpoint. 

In verse 17 Jacob said:

NKJ Genesis 49:17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, A viper by the path, That bites the horse's heels So that its rider shall fall backward.

This is not a positive illustration.  The serpent had no more of a positive image in Israel than it has in the United States.  It’s further in the poetic structure. 

NKJ Genesis 49:17 Dan shall be a serpent by the way, A viper by the path

So from serpent to viper you move from the general to the specific of a poisonous snake.

That bites the horse's heels So that its rider shall fall backward.

Dan is going to cause problems and is going to be the source of injury.  That’s the imagery that is set forth there.  It is very likely that the ultimate fulfillment of this is in the Tribulation if this is prophetic; and I think there's a strong case for that - that Dan is going to play a very negative role among the Jews in the end times.   We do have the picture of the serpent in Revelation 12:9 in terms of the great dragon who is cast out of Heaven who is called the devil and Satan who deceives the whole world.  He is cast to the Earth at that point.  He is called – he is the serpent of old as described in that chapter in Revelation 12.  So Dan is the picture of this deception and is a picture of leading the nation astray and seems to be the source of oppression in the tribulation period. 

Then we have the last verse, verse 19:

NKJ Genesis 49:19 "Gad, a troop shall tramp upon him, But he shall triumph at last.

Excuse me.  I was skipping to the last verse.  The last phrase for Dan is verse 18:

NKJ Genesis 49:18 I have waited for your salvation, O LORD!

…which seems to indicate a positive turning at the end.  So there's a movement there; but again I believe that issue of cryptic I'm not sure exactly what the long term application of that is.

Then we come to verse 19.  (I want to skip through a couple of these slides I put up there.  I took  too much time the introduction and announcements to go through some of that.)  Verse 19 is going to focus on Gad.  Now Gad is in the Transjordan.  Trans means across the Jordan.  The focal point of all these directions is always from Jerusalem.  So across the Jordan is always across the Jordan from Jerusalem so the area to the east of the Jordan is considered the Transjordan.   This is a modern Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.  The tribe of Reuben, the tribe of Gad and half of the tribe of Manasseh were in the Transjordan.  So Gad is in the middle.   

What we read here in verse 49:19 is rather short. 

NKJ Genesis 49:19 "Gad, a troop shall tramp upon him, But he shall triumph at last.

Then verse 20 is going to focus on his brother Asher.  These are two sons of Zilpah – Gad and Asher.  Asher is said to be:

NKJ Genesis 49:20 "Bread from Asher shall be rich, And he shall yield royal dainties.

So, both of these prophecies are positive.  They are both positive in the sense that though Gad is going to be beaten down historically in the end he will triumph.  I believe that indicates to me especially in the tribulation period when you have a remnant that there will be a large percentage from the tribe of Gad. 

Asher is also emphasized in these verses as bread from Asher shall be rich.  This would emphasize the productivity of Asher.  If you look at the map again Asher is located on the coastlands north of modern Haifa up into the area that is modern Lebanon up into Phoenicia.  That was the tribal land given to Asher.  This is very productive farmland and is a source of tremendous agricultural production.  So this indicates that Asher will provide much for the nation.

Then the next tribe that’s mentioned is Naphtali. 

NKJ Genesis 49:21 "Naphtali is a deer let loose; He uses beautiful words.

Now the tribe of Naphtali is just to the east of Asher.  This is in the area of Galilee.  A predominant part of Galilee would be under Naphtali as the center of the northern part of Galilee just north of the Sea of Galilee.  This would include the areas of the cities of Tiberius, Capernaum where Jesus lived.  All of the areas where Jesus ministered in His Galilean ministry were for the most part were in the area near Naphtali.  So, positive things are said about Naphtali. 

He is the sixth the son of Jacob and he's the second son of Bilhah.  It’s a reference to the fact that he is one who moves around.  The word translated “deer” here is the word for a young deer and it’s often used as a synonym for swiftness.  The idea that he is a deer that is let loose is that he has been sprung from a trap.  So Naphtali is pictured as a deer that is about to be caught in a trap or has been trapped and is able to get loose and then to escape the danger. 

This could have been fulfilled in a couple of different instances in the Old Testament.  In Judges 4:6 Barak who is the general who won’t go to war unless Deborah goes with him is from the tribe of Naphtali.  He is able to defeat the enemies of the king of Hatsor and the Canaanites.  So he traps them at the battle that occurs there in Judges 5 and has victory over them. 

Also we know that there are 12,000 from the tribe of Naphtali who we who are going to be regenerate during the tribulation period so they will also have a tremendous ministry.  That kind of thing could be an illusion to beautiful words.   Often the phrase “beautiful words” alludes to the gospel.  So that could be an allusion to future evangelist ministry from the tribe of Naphtali.  But as I said those are 3 pretty cryptic prophecies and it's hard to be much more specific as to what is involved there.

Then we come to more detailed prophecy which is Joseph.  We’re on much surer ground in understanding the prophecy of Joseph.  This covers several verses from verse 22 through verse 26 where we’re told that Joseph is a fruitful bough. 

NKJ Genesis 49:22 "Joseph is a fruitful bough, A fruitful bough by a well; His branches run over the wall.

That’s a very easy image and metaphor to understand. 

NKJ Genesis 49:23 The archers have bitterly grieved him, Shot at him and hated him.

NKJ Genesis 49:24 But his bow remained in strength, And the arms of his hands were made strong By the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),

Then verse 25:

NKJ Genesis 49:25 By the God of your father who will help you, And by the Almighty who will bless you With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

NKJ Genesis 49:26 The blessings of your father Have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers.

So there is a special blessing that goes to Joseph and this ends up because he receives the double blessing.  He receives this through his two sons who are the Manasseh and Ephraim.  So he gets a double blessing which means that – he is the second to the youngest.  As the younger of except for one of the brothers, he is the younger whom the elders will serve following that principle that the oldest serves the younger.  He is the one who receives the double portion (the double blessing) that should go to the firstborn.   But, he is far from being the firstborn.

Joseph was the first son born to Jacob and Rachel who was the real love of his life.  Rachel had been barren for many years and unable to conceive and have a son though that was her desire.  Finally after Leah had had 6 and each of the concubines had two each finally God allowed her to become pregnant and she conceived and then she gave birth to a son.  Now she is one of several women in the Scriptures who were barren and that is up not just my accident.  Their barrenness is emphasized because it is a picture of the fact that only God brings life where there is no life.  It is a picture of the fact that  with the patriarchs of Israel that the nation of Israel is miraculously born because Sarah the wife of Abraham was beyond child bearing years and she was barren and she never could have children until there was a miraculous conception and birth of Isaac. 

Then Isaac married Rebekah and Rebekah was barren until finally God allowed her to conceive.  And now Rachel!  So here you have the 3 wives of the 3 patriarchs of Israel are all unable to conceive until God miraculously enables them to conceive and give birth demonstrating that the nation of Israel is brought into existence in a miraculous way and they have a special divine mandate.  So when she is able to finally conceive and give birth to Joseph, she cries out in Genesis 30:24.

NKJ Genesis 30:24 So she called his name Joseph, and said, "The LORD shall add to me another son."

This word “add” in Hebrew is the word yasaph which is where the word Joseph comes from.  It means to increase or to continue. 

So God has added to her a son.  So Joseph begins his prophecy with this blessing in verse 22 that talks about how Joseph has already been blessed by God.  He's a fruitful bough.  He has done much.  He is the one who through the dreams that God gave him while he was in prison was able to inform the Pharaoh of the coming famine and through his wisdom and planning they were able to lay aside the stores that would not only did the Egyptians through the famine but also get his own family through the famine as they brought Jacob and the sons.  Seventy came down with Jacob from the area of Canaan and were then provided for because of Joseph’s wisdom.  So he is a fruitful bough.  He has had much the production already. 

And, he’s not just a fruitful bough, but he is said to be by a well or a spring (an active spring.)  This is in the desert.  This is a plant that is by a permanent water source and so it is going to grow faster and stronger and be more productive than anything around.  The imagery of course ultimately also goes back to the fact that he in his spiritual life is firmly planted in his relationship with God and in the Word of God. 

You have the same kind of imagery all the way through Scripture.  Psalm 1 is a very famous place that the person who is blessed by God and focuses on God is like a tree planted by the waters.  So the same imagery is used again and again in Scripture to refer to the believer that is firmly planted in the Word of God and Word of God is a source of spiritual blessing. 

This produces tremendous growth which is indicated by the third phrase.

His branches run over the wall.

There's much growth there and much production.

Then in verse 23 we read:

NKJ Genesis 49:23 The archers have bitterly grieved him, Shot at him and hated him.

This depicts the adversity that he has encountered in his life.  He has encountered a tremendous amount of opposition and antagonism.  He received antagonism and hatred from his own family.  His brothers sold him into slavery.  First they thought they would murder him and then they decided to make a little money on the deal and sell him into slavery. 

As a slave in Potipher’s house, he was falsely accused of rape by Potipher’s wife who had attempted to seduce him; but he resisted it.  In prison he was ignored and forgotten by those he helped and he was left to languish alone.  There he learned that he must trust and rely upon God because God alone is our source of happiness.  God alone in the source of stability and until we learn to trust Him in those dark places then we can never be truly successful in our Christian life.  So he learned to handle the pressure by relaxing and focusing on God. 

As a result of being planted and rooted in God, he was blessed in many ways.  He was blessed while he was a slave in Potipher’s house.  He was blessed while he was in prison; and he was blessed when he came out of prison and he was before Pharaoh and he served Pharaoh after interpreting the dreams and providing for the future of the Egyptians. 

So he is a picture throughout Scripture of the successful believer.  Any believer can do the same thing.  We have more than he did.  We have a completed canon of Scripture; and we have the indwelling Holy Spirit and the power of God the Holy Spirit.  But the basic issue for us is the same as for him.  It's volition.  Volition is what makes the difference between the brothers that were failures and Joseph because he made the decisions to focus on the Lord.  When it comes right down to it, volition is not simply a matter of choice; it's a matter of dedication and commitment in a particular direction.  It's a matter of commitment to a course of action and so that calls upon us to be mentally focused and to concentrate. 

Now one thing I've discovered as I get little older is that I don’t concentrate like I did when I was younger.  But I’m sure glad I established some of these habit patterns when I was younger because the longer we go without them the harder it is to reestablish it.  But we need to do that.  It is - the more that I study the Word, the more I see that the key issue in the spiritual life is mental.  It has to do with mental discipline and mental focus and we have to make those decisions to be consistent in our application of the Word and when we go through those hard times and the fires of adversity become intense that we have to be able to focus and concentrate and blot out of our minds the distractions that are there that come from all of that, all the distress of life and the adversity of life and keep our focus on Lord because He is the endgame. 

We may never understand why we're going through the things we’re going through or how God is using them in our life spiritually and we’re not asked to understand those things.  We’re not expected to understand those things so that we can then apply them.  We are simply to trust Him.  That is the whole focus in Hebrews 11.  We’re to walk by faith and not by sight. 

Faith is the evidence of things hoped for the assurance of things not seen.

So we have to learn to focus on the reality of God's Word.

So Joseph does that and as part of that we develop our skill in what we call the faith rest drill.  It is a drill because it's something we have to practice over and over and over again.  Usually we don't like doing drills. 

When I was a kid and I was taking piano lessons I had to get up every morning and I had to practice for thirty minutes every morning.  I hated doing that, but I had to do that.  When I was in band when I was in junior high and high school, we had to come in three or four days a week and we have to log in a certain amount of time in the practice room.  When I was in high school, we just had all these technique drills we had to play over and over again.  There's nothing worse than that.  There's nothing melodious about it.  There's no great tune there.  You're just playing drills again and again and again.  But they develop and improve your ability to perform when you are with the rest of the band or orchestra and playing. 

So we go through these drills.  In many other areas of life whether it’s dance or whether it’s business; whether its’ football any kind of athletics; there is always these drills and its discipline again and again and again.  What that boils down to over and again is just that one word volition.  Our lives are the product of the decisions we make and the way we do things is the way we've decided to do them and sometimes we have to take a good hard look and say, “You know, we have settled for second best in what we're trying to do and we have to set our standards a little higher and we have to press on because the issues have an eternal value.” 

We have to remember the promises of God and we have to utilize them. 

2 Peter 1:3 – one of my favorite passages:

NKJ 2 Peter 1:3 as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue,

He didn't leave anything out.  His grace didn't drop something.  He didn't forget.

“Oh yeah, that's right.  There's that one problem area in your life and I failed to provide for you.”

So you have an excuse as to whine…  No!  There's no whining in the Christian life.  So He has given us everything pertaining to life and godliness and it is through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue.  That's what we see in Joseph.  He is learning.  He’s building that personal relationship with God, trusting Him and learning to apply the promises. The main promise he has is the promise of the seed and the promise of inheritance which has not been fulfilled in his life or in the life of Abraham, Isaac, or his father Jacob.  So he's focusing on the future.

NKJ 2 Peter 1:4 by which

That is the character of God.

have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

That is by claiming those promises then we are able to imitate God and reflect His character in our life.  So Joseph is a picture of the believer who is focused on God and as a result grows to maturity and is a blessing for all those around him.

 That's the focal point that we see coming up in the next verse.

NKJ Genesis 49:24 But his bow remained in strength, And the arms of his hands were made strong By the hands of the Mighty God of Jacob (From there is the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel),

In verses 24 and 25 we have 5 different names of God that emphasize 5 different aspects of His character.  The first is the mighty hands of Jacob.  The word hand is often used in Scripture as a metaphor for the omnipotence of the power of God.  It is in the hands of a person that the strength of the upper body is carried out in whatever a person is doing.  If they’re is an artist and doing sculpture work (doing something working with their hands.  They are craftsmen.) it is the skill of their hands that they produce what they're going to produce.  So hands is a metaphor for the power of God; and it is a reference to the phrase in the previous clause “the arms of His hands.”  That is the arms of Joseph.  Joseph’s arms were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.  So it is not our strength but God’s strength.  It is not our power.  It’s God’s power.  We cannot do it in our own power.  We try to do it on our own apart from promises, apart from consistent application of the Word and we will always fail.  But when we're trusting in God, He is the one who will lift it up.  So the hands emphasize His omnipotence.  

Mighty God emphasizes also His omnipotence.  The phrase “mighty God of Jacob” is use 6 times in the Scripture.  For example Psalm 132:2:

NKJ Psalm 132:2 How he swore to the LORD, And vowed to the Mighty One of Jacob:

See this goes back to God’s manifestation of Himself to Jacob and Jacob is going through all of those growth stages that he went through as he has his initial deceptive spat with his brother Esau and then he has to run for his life and go live with the relatives up north in Haran.  There he has the battles back and forth with dear old cousin Laban who's going to out connive.  Laban is tricking the trickster Jacob and Jacob is trying to trick Laban and Jacob is always working to get controlnofthings to bring about the blessing.

God is just sitting back saying, “One of these days you are going to run our of gas and then you finally going to trust Me” which is what happens.  God shows that He is the mighty one in Jacob’s life. 

NKJ Isaiah 1:24 Therefore the Lord says, The LORD of hosts, the Mighty One of Israel, "Ah, I will rid Myself of My adversaries, And take vengeance on My enemies.

Isaiah 1:24 refers to the Lord of the Army's (of hosts) as the Mighty one.  Israel is the alternate name for Jacob. 

NKJ Isaiah 49:26 I will feed those who oppress you with their own flesh, And they shall be drunk with their own blood as with sweet wine. All flesh shall know That I, the LORD, am your Savior, And your Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob."

So this becomes a title for God.  He is not only the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob but He is the Mighty One of Jacob.  This blessing goes back to Isaiah 48:15 where Jacob had referred to God and the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac. 

Now the second title that is used of God in this passage is that He is the shepherd.  The idea of a shepherd – this is something I have thought through for years and years because the shepherd is the metaphor for the pastor.  The English word pastor is just another word, a synonym for shepherd.  Now when we think of a shepherd, there are a lot of different things the shepherds do for sheep.  But the Bible is very clear as to where this metaphor is to be applied in terms of using this term shepherd.  It applies to the leadership of Israel.  In Jeremiah they’re bad shepherds (false shepherds) that are leading the people astray.  They’re bad leaders.  The key element I think in the term pastor and shepherd is to emphasize leadership.  The pastor does it through teaching.  That's why in Ephesians 4:11-12 you have the gifts that are given there that are related to the local churches: the apostle, the evangelist and the pastor-and-teacher.  Those two words are linked together in a grammatical way as a tight figure of speech called a hendiadys.  The way that the pastor leads is through teaching.  That’s how he feeds that sheep.   That takes us back to John 10:21 when Jesus has that interchange on the beach with Peter and says:

NKJ John 21:17 He said to him the third time, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, "Do you love Me?" And he said to Him, "Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You." Jesus said to him, "Feed My sheep.

That is defining the role of the pastor.  He feeds the sheep.  He doesn't go and do a lot of other things that the shepherd metaphor might imply.  The Scriptures use this again and again.  For example in Psalm 10:23 David writes:

NKJ Psalm 23:1 A Psalm of David. The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

I think in some ways that sets the tone of that whole psalm.  It’s a wonderful psalm.  We've all read it, heard and I’ve taught it before.  But how is to shepherd manifested in this psalm?

NKJ Psalm 23:2 He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters.

NKJ Psalm 23:3 He restores my soul;

See the activeness of the Lord as shepherd is related to leadership.

He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name's sake.

NKJ Psalm 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

The rod and the staff have to do with moving the sheep along in terms of discipline, in terms of punishment in terms of protection.  So this is leadership.

NKJ Psalm 23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over.

All of these have to do ultimately with God leading the believer in his life and providing for him.

So the third phrase that’s used to refer to God - He's called the Stone of Israel.  This is the word eben where we get the word later on ebenetzer.  The Lord is the Stone of help.  Here God is the eben, our helper.  This is our stone, the stone of Israel.  For example in Genesis 28:13, this relates back God's faithfulness to His promises, to the idea of a stone or a rock is that which is immovable and unshakable.

In Genesis 28:13 God reiterated the promise to Jacob that He had given to Abraham and to Isaac.  So again and again we have this imagery of faithfulness, the imagery of God's consistency and that He will not depart from His promise.

Genesis 29:25 goes on to say:

NKJ Genesis 49:25 By the God of your father who will help you, And by the Almighty who will bless you With blessings of heaven above, Blessings of the deep that lies beneath, Blessings of the breasts and of the womb.

So He is - the almighty are once again emphasizing His power.  He is the one who is powerful enough to bring about that which He has promised.  The word for almighty here is sheddai which emphasizes the idea of the all sufficient one or the sustainer because He is the one who provides.  El sheddai was first used of the Lord in Genesis 17:1.  It’s a title that’s used 48 times in the New Testament. 

So we read on in verse 26:

NKJ Genesis 49:26 The blessings of your father Have excelled the blessings of my ancestors, Up to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Joseph, And on the crown of the head of him who was separate from his brothers.

Notice the reminder again of the adversity of how he was mistreated by his brothers.

So when this talks about all of these blessings, it talks about the totality of these blessings that will come up on him as the one is at the head of the family now.  He is the one who is portrayed as the real leader, the one who now oversees the double portion of the blessing   

So we go from Joseph and his prophecy concludes in verse 26 to Benjamin.  In verse 27 Benjamin is portrayed a ravenous wolf. 

NKJ Genesis 49:27 "Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he shall devour the prey, And at night he shall divide the spoil."

We’ll come back next time, wrap up with Benjamin, and then look at the specifics of the double blessing to Ephraim and Manasseh before we go back in Hebrews 11:22 and move forward into Moses. 

Sovereignity of God

Sovereignty of God   Gen 002

We see the emphasis on the sovereignty of God in Genesis.

1)      God is the ruler of the heavens and the earth, the one who disposes as He wills. He is called the Most High God, as we have seen already. He is, as we see in Genesis 1, the creator of everything. There is nothing in the heavens or on the earth that does not owe its existence and its sustenance to God. He controls everything.

2)      We see His acts in Genesis 1 as a God who names some things and individuals. He names the light day and the darkness night. His naming of things indicates His control. He determines the limits, the animals will procreate after their kind. He determines the limits, the boundaries of the waters and the land, and He determines nature. It is God who determines that something that is what it is, it is not what it is because of chance. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you believe the Scriptures, if you believe that Genesis one is a clear statement of a seven day creation and restoration, as we will see, then if you look at an oak tree you do not se the same tree that an unbeliever sees. You see leaves and acorns and branches, but what you see is something that was intricately created and designed by God, and what they see is something that is there by pure random chance. That means that whatever else is said about that tree believers do not see the same thing as unbelievers. The implication of that is profound because that means there is no neutral ground. We cannot go out there in the creation and say, Well let’s find some common ground in the creation we can agree on. We can’t agree on anything. The tree you see and believe in is not the tree they see. What they see is the product of time and chance and it just happens to be there. What you see is something that was purposely put there and designed that way by an omnipotent, sovereign God. And that makes all the difference in the world.

3)      God sets forth mandates and prohibitions for all things. After creating the animals in Genesis chapter one He says they are to multiply according to their kind, and He blesses them and gives an order to all living things to be fruitful and multiply. This indicates that He rules, nothing is there by chance.

4)      God brings about judgment in the curse. When He is disobeyed He judges that disobedience, and He outlines the consequences of that disobedience in the curse in Genesis chapter three. He brings about judgment on the evil of man at the time of the world-wide flood under Noah. He brings about another judgment on rebellious mankind at the tower of Babel. And He brings about judgment on Sodom and the cities of the plain.

5)      God is able to prophecy and predict the future, indicating His control of human history. God controls human history and brings about His purposes in history, and that is why He can prophecy the future—Genesis chapters 15 & 46.

6)      God disposes of people and property. He gives Canaan to His people. Notice that He gives Canaan the right to the land. He tells Abraham in Genesis 12 that their evil has not reached its fullness yet, so He does not take the land away from the Canaanites until the proper time, and then He takes it away and gives it to His people. This shows that God has the right to determine who will live where and who own what property.

7)      God promises kings to Sarah. He says, You will have kings that come forth from you. He is able to control who their descendants are and what their powers will be—Genesis 17.

8)      God controls people’s dreams. Abraham has dreams in Genesis 15; Jacob has dreams in Genesis 28, 31; Joseph interprets dreams in chapters 37, 40, 41. God controls people’s dreams and communicates through those dreams.

9)      God establishes and removes people in political power. He raises up some and He removes others. Genesis 41, God sustains Abimelech in his rule over the Philistines.

10)   He tests people—Genesis 22. He tests Abraham’s faith by ordering him to sacrifice his son, Isaac.

11)   God rules over nations, economies, and life—Genesis 40-41. Ultimately, economics are not determined by the market, they are determined by God.

12)   God chooses whom He will bless. He chose to call out Abraham; He chose to make a special people out of Abraham; He chose to bless him. The choosing of Abraham did not involve his eternal salvation, it involved God’s special plan for Abraham and his descendants, that God would bless them and use them to bring about His redemptive plan.

Sovereignty of God; Five Points

Let me just go over five points on the sovereignty of God just as an introduction: RD/1Sam/017

1.   Let’s look at the definition of the sovereignty of God. The term sovereignty relates to rulership and authority. When we just think about sovereignty, we think about a king. We think about a ruler. We think about His authority to rule over His domain. Sovereignty of God relates to God’s authoritative rule over His creation and over His creatures. When we ultimately get back to who is in charge, who is their boss, we end up with God.

God controls everything. But the way in which God controls everything is different. He exercises His control in direct ways and in indirect ways. As most of you know, one of the big theological conundrums that has caused theologians to argue for the last several thousand years, ever since the Scripture been revealed, is between where the limits are between the authority of God, His sovereignty and the free will, or the volition of man?

When we think about this one of the things that comes into question, just as an example, is the idea of causation. Who causes things? If God is in control, does He cause evil? If God is in control, did He cause Barak Obama to be elected? If God is in control, did He cause that great tsunami that hit in Indonesia several years ago that killed tens of thousands of people? What are the parameters here? When we think about causation in the human realm, based on our experience and our observation, we see one type of causation.

Actually, Aristotle divided things into four different categories of causation. I’m not going to get into that, but we see certain levels of causation that operate within the creaturely realm. Is God in the creaturely realm? No. God is above the creaturely realm. Causation, when it deals with the Creator to the creature, is not the same as the kind of causation that you and I observe.

One of the problems that we get into in discussing the issues between sovereignty and free will is we extrapolate to God the same kind of causation that we observe at the creaturely level. We’re trying to make the creator conform to creaturely causation. That’s a logical fallacy, and that’s a basic problem. God interacts with His creation in ways that are perhaps analogous to this, but they are not the same as the way in which causation occurs at the creaturely level. God rules over His creatures but does so in a way that allows for His creatures to utilize their independent will. Their volition is really a better term because they are never totally independent of God. There is creaturely will within certain boundaries. He gives them the freedom to exercise that volition within certain boundaries but God can always override that volition.

You may have someone who wants to build an empire, whether it’s a business empire, whether it’s a national empire, and God can override that and slap them down. God may allow them a degree of success as He did with Nebuchadnezzar. Then if you recall, He gave Nebuchadnezzar a dream saying remember your sovereignty? In that first dream when he is the head of gold over the statue, that might have gone to Nebuchadnezzar’s head. He’s the head of gold. He’s the greatest empire in the stream of empires. He was the ruler over all the earth. Then God says, “This has gone to your head. Now you think that it is all because of you, and so I am going to strike you down. You’re going to crawl around in the dirt and eat grass and get water by licking the dew off the grass for the next seven years. You’re not going to be able to talk to anybody. You’re basically going to be an animal.” God demonstrates His sovereignty. Even when we exercise our will God can still override that will.

A couple of ways that we express this is that the sovereign will of God is expressed through His plan and includes two things: It includes His permissive will, and it includes His decreed or revealed will. . Let me give you an example. God’s decreed will (and sometimes it uses the term decretive will) and His revealed will to Adam was “you shall not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” But God in His permissive will allowed Adam to exercise His will in rebellion to God; and we see what happened. God established enough flexibility in all of creation and Adam’s sin didn’t just affect him. He became corrupt but it reverberated throughout all of creation. The animal kingdom changed; the universe changed; a lot of things changed.

I think it is at that point that you have the second law of thermodynamics go into effect where everything deteriorates into a state of entropy. It is at that point that we see this huge change because of God’s permissive will. He built enough flexibility into creation to handle the chaos that comes from the exercise of independent will and independent volition when man went against His will. We have God’s sovereign will, which incorporates both His decreed will and His permissive will. In His permissive will He allows His creatures to exercise their own volition, but He has determined that human beings can exercise their own volition within certain boundaries. The first part is just the definition that the sovereignty of God refers to His authoritative rule over His creation and His creatures.

2. His sovereign will has determined the limits of human volition.

Have you ever noticed that you really want to do some things and you know that there’s not a prayer on this earth you are ever going to do it. God has limited whether or not you can fulfill those things. Some people say, if I just had X amount of dollars I would give that to support missions, or if I had X amount of dollars I would do this…. God says, nope. It is not going to happen. I don’t want you to do that because I don’t want them to have the money. If that’s what you are going to do with the money, you are never going to have any money. Sometimes it works the other way. If I had all this money I know what I would do. God says I am not going to let your sin nature get that much control of you, so you are never going to have the money. God exercises control and limits over our volition, and He overrides certain decisions.

3. God’s sovereign will is such that God has built into the framework of His plan for history the flexibility to handle whatever chaos results from human volition.

Just as He built flexibility into the creation world, the natural world, the physical world, the universe, to handle the chaos that came from sin, the same thing happens in history. When certain things happen in history as a result of human decisions, God can still override that and control it and still bring about what He has purposed in history. He is in control. He has such great control that He doesn’t—in contrast to the Calvinistic concept of a sovereign God—have to control the entire minutia. He has enough control to where within those boundaries of human volition He still can allow human volition to operate and bring about what He desires.

One way that has been expressed is that God has decreed that human will/volition operates alongside of God’s sovereignty. But it really isn’t alongside of it; it is never alongside. God’s sovereignty just allows it to operate within those certain boundaries, but God’s sovereignty is always the ultimate determiner of what’s allowable and what’s not allowable.

4. God’s sovereignty does not infringe upon human volition on critical issues such as man’s response to general or special revelation.

When somebody looks up at the skies and sees the patterns in the skies, he says, “This universe is bigger than anything. There is no way this could happen by chance. Then there must be something else out there. It has such order that there must be an ‘orderer’, somebody who is in control, somebody who has intelligently designed the universe. I want to know about Him.” God allows it and He will give more revelation. Somebody hears the gospel. God is not going to determine whether that person is negative or positive. That’s their decision. God the Holy Spirit is going to make that clear.

One of the pernicious doctrines in Calvinism is called irresistible grace. The reason you have to have irresistible grace in Calvinism is because their first point in TULIP is the ‘T’ - total inability; not total depravity. Total depravity is solid because we’re all depraved in every area of our being. That’s sin. Sin has corrupted everything. It has corrupted every aspect of our being.

But total inability means that you can’t exercise positive volition. You can’t do anything in a positive direction toward God unless God enables you. God is not going to enable you in Calvinism, unless you are elect. Then because you are elect, when God begins to draw you (from ) that is going to be irresistible.

Their basic argument is that because of total inability, you are basically blind and you can’t see the truth. If you can’t see the truth then you can’t respond to the truth. God is only going to give light to those whom He has elected. That is why it is irresistible.

Think about this. If you are blind to spiritual truth because you are fallen and because of sin, then why does Satan have to blind our minds to the truth of the gospel ()? Think about that. If you are already naturally blind because of sin and are totally unable to see truth or respond to truth, then why does Satan have to blind you to truth? says that Satan is the god of this age that blinds men to the truth of the gospel. He doesn’t need to do that if you are totally unable to do anything because of sin, according to Calvinism. But that is just a biblical point. Sometimes we don’t pay attention to those things. God’s sovereignty does not infringe upon human volition. He gives a little light. If that’s responded to He gives more light. If it is not responded to, He doesn’t give any more light. That’s the fourth point.

5. As we look at this whole issue, is one of the great passages on the sovereignty of God. It shows that God is the one who comes along and intervenes in human history. God messes with human history. He gets involved. That is one thing that really irritates unbelievers, the idea that God is an uncontrollable factor.

Under rationalism and empiricism man wants to control all the data. That’s why they think that with a doctrine such as global warming—or now it is called climate change and maybe a few other things—they think they can really get a handle on what is going on in the universe. That’s the arrogance of man. There’s so much data out there that they are ignorant of that can change the picture. God is constantly intervening. I think we saw an example of the intervention of God as an answer to prayer last week. I don’t know how many of you paid attention to what happened when that tropical storm Bill came on shore last week.

Study of Prophecy

Study of Prophecy RD-Rev 168

Prophecy is not something given to satisfy human curiosity about the future, but to remind us of God’s character.

1. His sovereignty 2. His faithfulness 3. His righteousness and justice 4. His love, goodness, and grace

The study of prophecy motivates us to prepare spiritually for eternity.

The study of prophecy challenges us to get our priorities straight.

The study of prophecy strengthens our confidence in the Scripture and in the Lord.

Suffering

Any level of suffering or adversity is a means by which we accelerate our spiritual growth.

James 005

 Psalm 91 is an extended passage that deals with this whole principle:

Ps 91:1 NASB He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

Ps 91:2 NASB I will say to the LORD, “My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!”

Ps 91:3 NASB For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper And from the deadly pestilence.

Ps 91:4 NASB He will cover you with His pinions, And under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

Ps 91:5 NASB You will not be afraid of the terror by night, Or of the arrow that flies by day;

Ps 91:6 NASB Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.

Ps 91:7 NASB A thousand may fall at your side And ten thousand at your right hand, {But} it shall not approach you.

Ps 91:8 NASB You will only look on with your eyes And see the recompense of the wicked.

Ps 91:9 NASB For you have made the LORD, my refuge, {Even} the Most High, your dwelling place.

Ps 91:10 NASB No evil will befall you, Nor will any plague come near your tent.

Ps 91:11 NASB For He will give His angels charge concerning you, To guard you in all your ways.

Ps 91:12 NASB They will bear you up in their hands, That you do not strike your foot against a stone.

Ps 91:13 NASB You will tread upon the lion and cobra, The young lion and the serpent you will trample down.

Ps 91:14 NASB “Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him {securely} on high, because he has known My name.

Ps 91:15 NASB “He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.

Ps 91:16 NASB “With a long life I will satisfy him And let him see My salvation.”

Suffering (Why We)

Suffering (Why We) RD/John/061

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‎‎1)      Because when Adam sinned the entire created world fell under the curse of sin, and that introduces the basis for all sickness, suffering and misery. The same application goes for birth defects and congenital problems. We all go through suffering simply because we live in a fallen world.

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‎‎2)      We are associated with people who make bad decisions.

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‎‎3)      We suffer because we personally make bad decisions, and this is the law of volitional responsibility.

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‎‎4)      God allows suffering to come into our lives to give us the opportunity to utilise Bible doctrine, to apply it in our lives, so that we can grow and advance to spiritual maturity. .

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‎‎5)      We suffer because of divine discipline.

‎‎6)      We need to recognise that a lack of suffering or a lack of sickness is not an indication of spirituality or salvation.  

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Suffering, reason for

There are six reasons why believers suffer and four reasons why unbelievers suffer.  RD/Daniel/039

Believers

First of all, believers suffer because of the fall, because we are all living in a fallen world and we are fallen creatures we all suffer. 

Second reason we suffer is because of rebellion toward doctrine; we reject doctrine, we disobey God’s specific mandates and the result is suffering, self-induced misery.

Third, we suffer because we are associated with others who are being disciplined, either family members or business or in a nation, even though we may be obedient to God as Daniel was, because he was associated with a nation that was disobedient, he suffered.  So we have cursing by association.

Fourth, we suffer because we are identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in Satan’s world; because you are a believer you have a target on your back for Satan and the demons to attack. 

Fifth, sometimes there is no other way to learn certain doctrines; we have to suffer because God puts us into those testing situations so that we can learn to apply doctrine. 

The sixth reason believers suffer is as a testimony to unbelievers, other believers, and to angels. 

Unbelievers

Now those last three do not apply to unbelievers.  The first three apply to unbelievers

First of all, believers suffer because of the fall, because we are all living in a fallen world and we are fallen creatures we all suffer. 

Second reason we suffer is because of rebellion toward doctrine; we reject doctrine, we disobey God’s specific mandates and the result is suffering, self-induced misery.

Third, we suffer because we are associated with others who are being disciplined, either family members or business or in a nation, even though we may be obedient to God as Daniel was, because he was associated with a nation that was disobedient, he suffered.  So we have cursing by association.

A fourth reason applies to unbelievers and that is that God is using suffering to get their attention to the cross.

Suffering, Why we

RD/1Sam/015b

There are three basic reasons that we suffer:

1. We suffer because of something we do.

2. We suffer unjustly because of the way things are.

Then we can break down those two categories. But when we think about suffering because of what we do:

a. We suffer because we sin and that bring its own natural negative consequence.

b. We suffer because we sin, and God enhances the natural negative consequences with divine discipline.

3. We suffer because we live in a fallen corrupt environment.

a. We suffer because we live in the devil’s world.

b. We suffer because we’re associated with fallen creatures that make bad decisions.

c. We suffer as a consequence of those bad decisions.

d. We suffer simply because we live in a corrupted world in a corrupted body. We’re going to face a number of negatives simply because of that corruption.

Summar of Dan's tribal History

Summary of Dan’s Tribal History   RD/Gen. 162b

1)      The descendants of Dan displayed wonderful achievements as well as some gross failures. It is heavier on the gross failure end than it is on the brilliant achievement end. This tribe is not known because of their great spiritual interest and their positive volition to God but they do have some positive achievements, not in the spiritual realm where they have tremendous failure. They were responsible for leading nation into idolatry many times in their history.

2)      The Danites were the second most numerous tribe in the wilderness period, second only to the tribe of Judah. If we look at the tribe allotment, the inheritance set apart for Dan was not nearly the size of the allotment for Judah. They failed to take their land and this was due to their spiritual failure.

3)      One of the better members of this tribe is Aholiab who was Bezaliel’s assistant. Bezaliel was the chief craftsman on the tabernacle. He is on the positive end and on the other end is the womanising, self-absorbed Samson, and these are the two most famous members of this particular tribe.

4)      At the end of the wilderness period as they are about to go into the land there is another prophetic statement made about Dan by Moses—Deuteronomy 33:22 where Moses refers to the tribe as a lion’s cub, using a term and an imagery that is very similar to the imagery that Jacob uses for the tribe of Judah and the reference to the Lord Jesus Christ, but there is a difference in the metaphor.

5)      The period of the Judges is when we primarily see a lot of information about the tribe of Dan, and this involves two key events. One has to do with Samson and his judgeship—Judges 13-16. That is followed in chapters 17 & 18 by a focus on the migration that occurs by the Danites from the south to the north. They conquer the people in Laish and establish their inheritance in the northern part of the land, but in doing so they pick up this reprobate Levite priest, an apostate, and take him up to Dan to establish an alternative worship site and an alternative religion. He is a descendant of Moses so they think he has some legitimacy and this becomes a trap and a snare for the Danites throughout the rest of history.

6)      Though some have argued that the Antichrist comes from the tribe of Dan this cannot be supported biblically. The tribe is omitted later on from the genealogies in 1 Chronicles 2-10, and it is also omitted from the twelve tribes that are mentioned in Revelation chapter seven. There is no Jewish evangelist from the tribe of Dan during the Tribulation period, but nevertheless God’s grace does provide them with a future and they do have an inheritance in the land, according to Ezekiel’s layout and apportionment of the land during the Millennial kingdom.

Suzerain-Vallal Treaty

Suzerain-Vassal Treaty

Suzerain-Vassal treaty contract that we call the Mosaic law has basic principles related to real estate sales, contracts and management that relate specifically back to the overall structure that we get out of the beginning of genesis.

1)      The land was not to be owned by Israel; the land was owned by God. Leviticus 25:23 NASB “The land, moreover, shall not be sold permanently, for the land is Mine; for you are {but} aliens and sojourners with Me.” What God is saying is that Israel is a tenant. They have temporary delegated ownership but ultimately the land belonged to God.

2)      Israel was a tenant to the Lord.

3)      No land could be sold permanently because ultimately the Lord owned the land.

4)      Temporary transfer of tenant responsibilities or sale could take place, but it wasn’t permanent. It would revert back to the original tenant at the year of Jubilee. Leviticus 25:28.

5)      The transfer from one tribe to another was prohibited.

6)      After the land title or tenant responsibility was sold or transferred it could be redeemed at any time by the kinsman-redeemer, the goel. It is ultimately a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ who is our kinsman-redeemer. So we begin to see the significance of this whole real estate transaction as it relates to a kinsman redeemer. Leviticus 25:25 NASB “If a fellow countryman of yours becomes so poor he has to sell part of his property, then his nearest kinsman is to come and buy back what his relative has sold. [26] Or in case a man has no kinsman, but so recovers his means as to find sufficient for its redemption.”

Syncretism-Smorgasbord Religion

SMORGASBORD RELIGION

RD/Kings/059

Syncretism: The attempt to assimilate differing or opposite doctrines and practices, especially between philosophical and religious systems, resulting in a new system altogether in which the fundamental structure and tenets of each have been changed. Syncretism of the gospel occurs when its essential character is confused with elements from the culture. In syncretism the gospel is lost as the church simply confirms what is already present in the culture.

Synechdoche

Synechdoché  RD/Heb/144b

A synecdoché is the exchange of one idea for another associated idea.

The difference between Metonymy and Synecdoché lies in this; that in Metonymy, the exchange is made between two related nouns; while in Synecdoché, the exchange is made between two associated ideas.

A synecdoché is the exchange of one idea for another associated idea. From the Greek meaning “to receive something from.” It is a figure by which one word receives something from another which is internally associated with it by the connection of two ideas: as when a part of a thing is put by a kind of Metonymy for the whole of it, or the whole for a part.

Temptation of Jesus

Temptation of Jesus   Rev. 088b

When we consider the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness what we see is that even though the temptations are to sin the rationale that is embedded in these temptations is worldliness. And we watch to see how Jesus handles that, because He is setting a pattern for us, giving us an example of how to deal with these things. There is a comparison and contrast here between Israel in the Old Testament and the Lord Jesus Christ in His ministry. There are five points of comparison:

1)      The Jews in the wilderness go into the wilderness following their baptism into Moses, according to 1 Corinthians 10:3. This is the beginning of their history. Jesus goes into the wilderness following His baptism with John the Baptist, according to Matthew chapter three. This is the inauguration into this new ministry.

2)      The events that take place in Israel’s life are in the wilderness as they are in the Lord Jesus Christ. They both go into the wilderness. The Jews in the Old Testament are in the wilderness for forty years; Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights.

3)      Both are tested with hunger. The Israelites have left Egypt and have left all the wonderful food of Egypt and they are looking for food and water in the wilderness. Jesus goes voluntarily into the wilderness, following the Holy Spirit, and is on a voluntary fast for forty days and forty nights.

4)      Israel failed because they failed to trust God’s Word and they failed to rely upon His promises. However, the Lord Jesus Christ succeeds in trusting in God’s Word and trusting in God’s promises.

5)      The order of the tests in Matthew is to reflect the order of the testing in those early days in Israel’s history. First they are tested with relation to food, the test related to manna in Exodus 16. Then there was the grumbling related to the water, and that was dealt with by the provision of water out of the rock at Massah, Exodus 17. Then there was the issue of the acquisition of the conquest of the land where the Jews were told to go into the land to conquer the Canaanites and establish the kingdom of God in Exodus 23:20-33.

Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness

Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness   Rev. 088b

There are five points of comparison:

1)      The Jews in the wilderness go into the wilderness following their baptism into Moses, according to 1 Corinthians 10:3. This is the beginning of their history. Jesus goes into the wilderness following His baptism with John the Baptist, according to Matthew chapter three. This is the inauguration into this new ministry.

2)      The events that take place in Israel’s life are in the wilderness as they are in the Lord Jesus Christ. They both go into the wilderness. The Jews in the Old Testament are in the wilderness for forty years; Jesus is in the wilderness for forty days and forty nights.

3)      Both are tested with hunger. The Israelites have left Egypt and have left all the wonderful food of Egypt and they are looking for food and water in the wilderness. Jesus goes voluntarily into the wilderness, following the Holy Spirit, and is on a voluntary fast for forty days and forty nights.

4)      Israel failed because they failed to trust God’s Word and they failed to rely upon His promises. However, the Lord Jesus Christ succeeds in trusting in God’s Word and trusting in God’s promises.

5)      The order of the tests in Matthew is to reflect the order of the testing in those early days in Israel’s history. First they are tested with relation to food, the test related to manna in Exodus 16. Then there was the grumbling related to the water, and that was dealt with by the provision of water out of the rock at Massah, Exodus 17. Then there was the issue of the acquisition of the conquest of the land where the Jews were told to go into the land to conquer the Canaanites and establish the kingdom of God in Exodus 23:20-33.

Ten Horns and the Little Horn

Are the Ten Horns and the Little Horn Past or Future

RD/Rev 194b

Four Reasons to Take This as Future:

1. No historical form of the Roman Empire existed in a 10-king or     kingdom form.

2. Little horn and uprooting of 3 horns

3. The scene of final judgment in 7:9–12.

4. The final kingdom is totally destroyed and replaced by Christ’s kingdom.

Ten Problem Solving Devices or Stress Busters

Ten Problem Solving Devices or Stress Busters

James 003

What are the stress-busters or problem-solving devices that God has designed for us? As long as you know these and apply these you can handle anything that takes place and never convert any adversity into stress.

1)     Rebound (like recovering the ball in basketball) or grace recovery. The point is that rebound gives you a chance if you mess up through sin to recover and keep moving and keep playing and score again. Rebound is the grace provision for the carnal believe to recover the filling of the Holy Spirit through naming, admitting, acknowledging personal sin privately to God the Father. It is the method for the believer by which fellowship with God is restored so that he can resume the spiritual life. 1 John 1:9; 1 Corinthians 11:28. Self-examination is essential to confession.

2)     The filling of the Holy Spirit. This is defined as the soul of the believer under the temporary control of the Holy Spirit. (It is temporary because as soon as you sin again you immediately lose it, you are under the control of the sin nature, you are out of fellowship with God, and you are trying to run your life on your own terms) It is the divine provision of the power of God to execute the Christian life. God gives us two basic power options, two basic means of power in the spiritual life. One is the Word of God; the other is the Spirit of God. These two work together, you can’t have one without the other. We are filled by means of the Holy Spirit. What does He fill us with? He fills us with doctrine. That means you have to be somewhere where you are exposed to the teaching of God’s Word so that the Holy Spirit can then fill your soul with that doctrine. So we are filled with the Holy Spirit and then He brings the doctrine to mind and we then have to use our volition to choose to apply it or not.

3)      The faith-rest drill. Faith-rest means that we believe God and we rest in His power. It doesn’t mean that we believe God and we don’t do anything because there are many commands that say to do something. For example, James 1:2 says “Count it all joy.” Faith-rest doesn’t mean I am going to believe God and not do anything; faith-rest means I am going to believe God and count it all joy. So there is an active side to faith. The active side is to do what the imperative says to do. The rest idea is to give rest to the soul, knowing that if I apply what God says to do then I can relax because God is in control and I don’t have to worry about it. The faith-rest drill is defined as the believer’s basic problem-solving device for claiming the promises of God and mixing them with faith through the filling of the Holy Spirit to generate tranquillity of soul in the midst of the adversities of life. The faith-rest drill maintains the believer’s ability to think under pressure, to keep his emotions in perspective, and to appreciate the grace of God. Hebrews 4:1-3a; 2 Peter 1:2-4. The three stages of the faith-rest drill: a) Mixing the promises of God with faith to stabilize the soul. That is simply claiming a promise, e.g. 1 Peter 5:7 or Philippians 4:5,6, 18, 20. But before you can claim a promise you have to know a promise. b) We glean from those promises relevant doctrines or rationales. A rationale is a series of reasonings, a series of principles that are put together in a logical relationship. This is what David does over and over again in the Psalms. Cf. Psalm 56:3,4 NASB “When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You. In God, whose word I praise, In God I have put my trust; I shall not be afraid. What can {mere} man do to me?” See how he goes from the problem to focus on eternal principles of doctrine. He reaches an important conclusion here: “What can mere man do to me?” So with the faith-rest drill you glean from a promise relevant doctrines and you reason on the basis of those doctrines, and you use that in your prayer life when you are praying to God in the midst of that crisis. c) You reach doctrinal conclusions so that faith controls the soul and you are stabilized. There is no stress. Adversity has been fought off and you are calm and relaxed and able to handle whatever the situation is.

4)      Grace orientation. This is defined as aligning our thoughts and actions to non-meritorious policy of God, based on the firm assurance that we receive the consideration, equity and care of the Supreme Court of Heaven. Grace orientation says that God treats us not on the basis of what we deserve but on the basis of who and what He is, that we are not out to obtain God’s favour by what we do in life, that God loves us because of who He is and what Jesus Christ did on the cross. It has nothing to do with who and what we are, and never will. When we understand God’s grace policy toward us and how little we deserve the incredible bounty He provides we grow spiritually in our thinking and adapt to His procedures. We begin to apply this charitable policy of undeserved favour to ourselves and to others, and we become increasingly sensitive to and tolerant of the weaknesses of those around us. Grace orientation is foundational to everything that comes later in the spiritual life. Grace means we don’t get what we deserve. Grace means that God blesses us infinitely because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross for us. It is on that basis that we should treat other people. If you don’t understand grace orientation you will never understand true love in your life. Ephesians 4:31, 32 NASB “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” That is the model. It is non-meritorious. Because of that we are to put away these things and be kind to one another.

5)      Doctrinal orientation. Before you can truly be oriented to doctrine you have to be oriented to life. Orientation means to line up with a standard. When you line yourself up with something you then know what the reality is. Doctrinal orientation means the map of reality, the objective reality, is the Word of God. Doctrinal orientation means that you are going to make doctrine the highest priority in your life. It is defined as the renovation and alignment of the believer’s thinking to the plan of God through metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness in the right lobe of the soul. That takes us back to how you learn doctrine, and this is very important. First of all, the pastor-teacher communicates doctrine to you and through your human spirit, which you received at the moment of salvation and which enables you to understand doctrine, and the filling of the Holy Spirit, you are able to comprehend doctrine at a basic level. It is then transferred automatically by the Holy Spirit to the left lobe of the soul, called the NOUS [nouj] in the Greek, or mind. This is the staging area for doctrine where academic principles are stored. In the process of learning anything in life, first you learn it academically and then you begin to apply it. At that moment that you understand it academically in your mind you have a choice; volition comes into play. You can either accept it as true or you can reject it—negative volition. If you accept it as true then it is transferred by the Holy Spirit into the right lobe of your soul which the Bible calls the innermost part of your soul, the KARDIA [kardia] or heart. It is there that doctrine is stored and circulates, so that under the filling of the Holy Spirit you can recall those doctrines to mind and apply them to the circumstances of life. You have to apply it, the Holy Spirit never takes the place of your volition. You are the one who has to decide whether this is going to be a part of your life. You can assimilate it through the Holy Spirit so that it becomes a part of your thinking but then you have to put it into practice; you have to use it. For doctrinal orientation the renovation and alignment of the believer’s thinking to the plan of God through metabolized doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness in the right lobe of the soul, remembering and applying doctrine in the soul so that divine viewpoint characterizes and permeates a believer’s thinking. You are going to live and breathe doctrine. That doesn’t mean you are going to go out and beat people over the head with it. Jesus said that is casting your pearls before swine. Don’t do it. You have to be sensitive to unbelievers, they can’t understand a thing about doctrine because they don’t have the equipment. They are spiritually dead, you have to give them the gospel. When we are inculcated with doctrinal standards we rely on the Lord, we make good decisions, accurately and objectively evaluate our lives and resolve the dilemmas of life with the problem solving devices.

6)     A personal sense of destiny. A personal sense of your eternal destiny is when you sit down today and realize that every decision you make today is determining who you are going to be for eternity. Everything we do right now is either going to accrue to rewards or loss of rewards at the judgment seat of Christ. While we are on the earth right now, as we apply doctrine we develop the capacity for life, for love, for happiness. We develop the capacity for a relationship with God. It is that capacity that we carry with us into heaven. Some people who are losers in the spiritual life and complete failures are going into heaven with zero capacity for a relationship with God. There will be no capacity for where they are, no capacity for enjoyment of God, nothing. So what we do today determines what we are going to be for eternity. That is what a personal sense of destiny is. When we understand that every test accrues to our spiritual growth and our capacity for eternity, and we begin to take things a little more seriously because of its eternal impact, that is when we are getting a personal sense of destiny. As the believer advances to spiritual adulthood he develops absolute confidence in God’s plan, developed through learning doctrine, the utilization of the first five problem-solving devices, and continued advance in the spiritual life. As the believer begins to live his life in the light of eternity it results in an enhanced capability to objectively and accurately evaluate himself, to overcome adversity, to deter stress, and to solve problems. His future develops specific dimensions in a sharp focus. He begins to realize more and more that he is a citizen of heaven and that he is just passing through this world, and what really matters is that which counts for eternity. A believer’s individual niche in the plan of God requires a personal perspective, and with this sense of one’s own destiny the maturing believer begins to know and experience the shared destiny with Christ as his own. It becomes less academic and more real. He knows that where he is going is heaven. This is the picture we get with Abraham who travelled and never had a permanent home. He lived in a tent but his focus was on that city of God that he knew he was headed for. He had an eternal focus, he had an understanding of what his destiny is, and that is what he was working towards. He was living now in the light of eternity. The present decisions determine what we will be for eternity.

7)      A personal love for God the Father. As a believer learns and applies doctrine his knowledge of God increases. He responds with respect, admiration and reverence for who God is and all that He has done for him—all of the incredible things He has done for him, all of the assets He has provided for facing everything in life. Deuteronomy 6:5; Matthew 22:37; 1 Peter 1:8. Only God is absolute perfection, therefore He is the only worthy object of personal love. The virtue generated from personal love for God provides the only basis for value and stability in human love. When the average person says, “I love you,” what he is saying is, “I love something about you,” the object of love that you have, something attractive about them that the love is based on. When that disappears the love goes away. That is why it is also called a conditional love, it is predicated upon the other person meeting certain conditions in order for there to be love. The whole point in love is that it comes from your virtue and integrity, and if a persona doesn’t have virtue and integrity in their own souls then they can’t love somebody else. Love has to be based on who and what you are. As a believer that comes only from Bible doctrine and the development of virtue and integrity and honor.

8)      Unconditional love for all mankind. People are the source of all kinds of problems in our lives, and if we don’t learn to have unconditional love for them then the opposite is bitterness and anger and resentment and vindictiveness and giving in to all kinds of feelings because they are the cause of our misery. So we have to develop as believers unconditional love for all mankind. Jesus said: “By your love they will know you are my disciples.” This is the consistent function of individual integrity towards friends, enemies, loved ones, strangers. It is a non-emotional, unconditional regard for the entire human race that does not require intimacy, friendship, attractiveness, or even acquaintance with a specific object of love. Personal love demands knowledge, and there is no way we can know everybody. So we are talking about a love that does not require intimacy, etc. Unconditional love derives from the virtue of the subject, not the appeal or merit of the object of love. It views all people through the eyes of a virtuous character built on Bible doctrine and personal love for God the Father. It is a love that is based on who God is and what God has done for the human race. It is not a love that is based on who and what I am.

9)      Inner happiness. This is the mental attitude of the spiritually maturing believer who maintains an attitude of optimism, reassurance, animation and joy in every circumstance, including adversity. When the spiritual life takes precedence over external circumstances and the believer keeps his eyes on God’s solutions rather than his own problems divine inner tranquillity and contentment conquers unhappiness and overcomes any detrimental environment. John 15:11; James 1:2. You have to let your focus be on God.  When you realize that God is really in control and that you really love God and that he truly loves you, then the circumstances of life fade in terms of their significance. This is clearly an attitude that does not come to the spiritually immature or the baby in diapers.

10)   Occupation with Christ, maximum personal love for the Lord Jesus Christ that comes from Bible doctrine circulating in the stream of consciousness. By means of the filling of the Holy Spirit so that the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16) influences every thought and action. The issue here is that when the crisis hits the first thought that comes into your mind is: How would Jesus handle this? That is not a subjective answer. As a mature believer who has doctrine in his soul you know exactly what the mind of Christ says, what Scripture says. So when you ask, “How would Jesus handle this,” you have doctrine. Occupation with Christ means Jesus Christ is the focus. Hebrews 12:2, keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

As we respond to what happens in adversity it strengthens our soul and builds a line of fortification. How often the Scriptures say, “Lord, you are the bulwark, the fortress of my soul.” This is David’s use of this military analogy over and over again. God fortifies the soul. As you learn doctrine, apply doctrine, use these stress-busters continually in your life then what happens is that your soul is strengthened. It builds up the soul, fortifies it, and it becomes easier and easier to handle those adversities and to apply doctrine the next time. The result is, there is no stress.

Tested in four areas.

Tested in four areas. RD/John/062

‎1)      First, are they creator or creature oriented. This has to do with

God-consciousness. And some point in life we become God-conscious, aware of the existence of God or at least that there is something greater than us. Romans chapter one says that there is enough evidence for everyone to know that God exists.

‎2)      Will they submit to the authority of God or not?

‎3)      Gospel orientation: Will they accept Jesus Christ or reject Him? Positive volition or negative volition at gospel hearing.

‎4)      Will they be grace-oriented and advance in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, or, even though they accept the gospel and become believers will they reject grace and go into either reversionsim or moral reversionism, which is legalism?

Testing

How does Testing work?    Gen. 108b

1)      The tests referred to in Scripture for spiritual advance are more than just the negative vicissitudes and problems that we run into in life. Most of those things that we deal with on a day to day basis don’t really rise to the same level of those situations in the Scripture that are designed as tests. These are specific events that are designed God for each one of us to produce momentum in our spiritual advance.

2)      We see from the illustration of Abraham’s spiritual life that the tests are negative circumstances that are directly related to the promises God made in the Abrahamic covenant.

3)      We see that the tests are specifically designed by God. Genesis 22:1, “And it came to pass after these things, that God did test Abraham.” So it is a divinely designed test, not just the negative things that happen because we live in a fallen world. These are of a higher quality.

4)      Tests are for the benefit of the one tested in terms of spiritual growth. They are designed to produce momentum in our spiritual growth, to use particular doctrines we have earned, and to deal specifically with us in terms of the weaknesses of our sin nature so that those weaknesses can be dealt with by the Word of God. It allows the believer to convert the potential, which is the doctrine in the soul, into reality. Since God is omniscient He knows exactly what each of our weaknesses are; we have to figure out what doctrine to use. He is going to push everybody’s button differently.

5)      The ultimate purpose is for the believer to demonstrate love for God through obedience and application of doctrine. That is what God is after; that is why the test.

6)      God promises the believer that He is in charge of all these tests. 1 Corinthians 10:13, “No testing has overtaken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able.” The testing doesn’t come into our life by chance but under the sovereign direction of God. What does “above that you are able” mean” It doesn’t mean that God is not going to give you more than you can handle. There is more to it than that. It goes on from there: “but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that you may be able to endure it”—that you can stay under the testing, the pressure; that you can continue to live in the midst of the pressure cooker day in and day out by means of the promises of God and the filling of the Holy Spirit. The reason we can handle these testings and bear them is because God has given us positionally as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ everything that we need to be able to handle them. But the tests don’t come randomly, they come under the sovereign control of God, so we can relax and know that no matter how horrible it may be God is in control and He has designed this test specifically for our needs in order that we can advance in our spiritual lives.

7)      The test is designed to manifest God’s grace and power, and to be a testimony to other human beings and to the angels. The test gives the believer an opportunity to be a spotlighted example of the grace of God.  Genesis 22:1, “And it came to pass after these things, that God did test Abraham.” The word there for test is the Hebrew word massah, which means to test, to try, to prove in the sense of assaying gold and proving its value. It is translated “tempt” but in the sense of testing. The word etymologically derives from a Hebrew word which means a signal pole, a standard, an ensign, a banner or sign, and it shows that the understanding in Hebrew and the concept of testing is that it gave an opportunity of raising a banner that illustrated the grace of God; that you were posting a billboard over you life, that “I am being tested by God and this gives me a chance of testifying and being a witness to the sufficiency of God’s grace and power in my life. That is exactly what we see revealed in the New Testament: that every time we have a test it is an opportunity to be, as it were, a legal witness in a courtroom to the grace of God, the sufficiency of His grace and the Word of God, and His ability to take care of us even under the most dire of circumstances.    

Testing People

People Testing RD/1Sam/074

1. People testing takes place when we are faced with challenges in personal relationships.

Two forms:

• People who oppose us

• People who challenge our loyalty

2. All people testing is resolved through the use of the

Walking by the Spirit:

Grace Orientation:

Doctrinal Orientation:

Personal Love for God:

Impersonal Love for Others

3. People testing falls under the category of all suffering. Therefore,

a. Deserved: It is the direct result of our own sinfulness;

b. Undeserved: It is the direct result of the sinfulness of those we are closely related to

c. Undeserved: It is undeserved and designed for personal spiritual growth

4. When we are under attack, rejection, perceived rejection, overt hostility, then we follow these steps.

1. We turn it over to the Lord,

2. We think in terms of divine justice as seen in David’s in

3. We go the extra mile in being kind, thoughtful, and gracious to the one who is the source of the test. Example: The Good Samaritan.

4. We do not dwell on personal affronts, injuries, insults, or assaults. Whenever we dwell on those things, or let them influence our behavior, we are putting the other person and our sin nature in control. This means we put that person in a position to influence our life and happiness.

The Apologists

The Apologists

Chief among the Apologists was Justin, called “the martyr,” whose two “apologies” date from the middle of the second century. His Dialogue with Trypho the Jew was written at about the same time.

 Among the others was Aristides, who wrote the oldest “apology” now extant,

Tatian (Oratio ad Graecos, a pamphlet directed against Greek culture, ca. 165), and

Athenagoras (De resurrectione mortuorum and Supplicario pro Christianis, both written about 170).

The following might also be included in this group: Theophilus of Antioch (Ad Autolycum libri tres, 169–182), and

the Epistle to Diognetus, whose author is unknown,

and the similarly anonymous Cohortatio ad Graecos, which appeared just before the middle of the third century.

The last-named work has been erroneously ascribed to Justin. The Apologists wrote other pieces too, which are now lost and known only by name. (Cf., e.g., Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History, IV, 3)

Bengt Hagglund, History of Theology, Translation of Teologins Historia., electronic ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999, c1968), 25.

The Ark

There have been several suggestions as to what happened to the Ark.  I am just going to run through these because you’ve probably heard one or more of these.  RD/Heb 139

1.       There are some that have suggested that the Ark was in the Temple when Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the Temple and the Babylonians took it along with all the other furniture in the Tabernacle, melted it all down and took all the gold back to Babylon.  So, it is no longer in existence.  On a variation of that, some have suggested that they didn’t melt it down.  They took all the furniture back to Babylon. That’s what’s referred to in Daniel 5 when Belshazzar is having the big party and he sees the handwriting on the wall and he is going to have all these treasures brought out from the storeroom there in Babylon so that he can show everybody how wealthy he is. The idea is that the Ark was taken.  Maybe the Jews brought it back with them even though it’s never mentioned after the Babylonian captivity.  All of that is based on silence.

2.       Secondly there is a rabbinical tradition that says that the Levites buried the Ark - hid it in a subterranean chamber beneath the Temple Mount before the Babylonians could capture the city.  Nobody knows what happened to it or how to get to that chamber.  The knowledge was lost.

3.       Third, there is another tradition in one of the apocryphal books.  It states that Jeremiah took the Ark out of Jerusalem and hid it in a cave out in the desert.  Of course the location for that cave has now been lost and would await disclosure by the Lord when He returns.

4.       The fourth suggestion is that the Ark was transported to heaven where it now rests.  Some claim that’s the Ark that is seen and mentioned in Revelation 11:19.

5.       There are others who think that the Ark was taken away by Jeremiah and taken down to Egypt after the Babylonian conquest and that it eventually ended up in Ethiopia.  That was a popular view back in the 90’s.

The Law

The Law   RD/Heb/097b

1 The Law could not justify.

2 Second, the Law could not give eternal life according to Galatians 3:21.  The law could not give eternal life. 

3 Third, the law could not provide the Holy Spirit.  Galatians 3:20.  This is why as we will see when we get into the next chapter when we deal with the New Covenant that there has to be a new covenant and the sign of the New Covenant is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  That’s why you have to have a new covenant because the old covenant could not provide the Holy Spirit.

4 Fourth, the Law never produced miracles.  Galatians 3:5 The law never produced miracles.

5  Fifth, the Law could not resolve the problem of the sin nature.  In fact the law exposed the sin nature.  Romans 8:3, 7.

The Law of

The Law of  RD/1 Cor. 047

The law of liberty

The believer has the right to enter into any activity that is not sinful. That means it is not specifically prohibited by the Word of God and will not cause personal failure in the Christian life. Every believer has liberty in Christ. The question is that there are times when we need to restrict our liberty. That brings into account the second law, the law of love which is directed toward other believers. This is the impersonal love application toward other believers. It is a spiritual law based on consideration for immature believers, it places love for the weaker Christian ahead of the law of liberty. As an application of impersonal love the believer refrains from participating in a legitimate activity, not because it is wrong but because to spare susceptible believers from temptation in their area of weakness.

The Law of Expediency

 The law of expediency is a spiritual law based on consideration for the unbeliever. A believer refrains from doubtful activity, not because they are sinful but because they may mislead or offend an unbeliever and prevent him from recognizing the true issue of the gospel, that Christ died for his sins.

 The Law of Personal Sacrifice

The law of personal sacrifice is directed toward God. This is a spiritual principle directed toward God that involves the abandonment of a completely legitimate function in life in order to more intensely serve the Lord in a specialized capacity. The motive underlying this sacrifice is always evangelism and spiritual growth of the individual believer. In 1 Corinthians chapter nine we will see that the law of personal sacrifice is the issue in the first 15 verses. In verses 16-23 we have the law of expediency. Then we are going to introduce a new law which is the law of self-mastery.

The Parallel between the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ

The parallel between the Holy Spirit and written revelation and the Holy Spirit and the revelation of Jesus Christ.   RD/2 John 004

Why is this important?

   1. This is important because if the Bible is a word about God rather than the Word from God then it would contain errors and we cannot rely upon it exclusively. It would mean that the ultimate authority would no longer be what the Bible says, the ultimate authority would be what man says. If the Bible is the Word from God then it contains eternal absolute truth and it is our job under the ministry of the Holy Spirit to discern what God has said. We must remember that God has revealed Himself in order to be understood and He has given us in the church age the Holy Spirit, called the Spirit of truth because that is His role to illuminate our minds and to help us understand what the Scripture says. Today this is a crucial subject, and a crucial one for today because it boils down to the basic issue of authority. Today people want to make the authority man and so they constantly want to challenge the veracity of the Bible. The Bible has always been authenticated, not proved, through historical and archaeological evidence. The Bible as the Word of God contains its own authority; it is self-authenticating. When God speaks man knows it. He may question it, may suppress it in unrighteousness (Romans 1:18) but nevertheless in his soul he reverberates to the voice of God and knows that God has spoken.

   2. The key terms when talking about inspiration.

a)      The first is revelation. The term means to disclose or uncover that which was previously unknown. In the Scriptures it is God the Holy Spirit who discloses the hidden thoughts of God to man through the message of the Scripture. He discloses to man the basic problem of man which is sin and God’s perfect solution which is Jesus Christ the son of God, the eternal deity who was made flesh and became true humanity that He might go to the cross and die for us. Jesus Christ is the highest and greatest disclosure of God to man. John 1:14-18 NASB “And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. John testified about Him and cried out, saying, “This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.’” For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained {Him.}”

b)      Inspiration. The word comes from the Greek word theopneustos [qeopneustoj], and is found in 2 Timothy 3:16 NASB “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; [17] so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” The word “inspired,” theopneustos, is a compound word from theos, meaning God, and pneustos, meaning breath. God breathed, not man. God breathes out the information into the souls of the writers and then the writers exhale that information into Scripture. That is the mechanics. “All Scripture,” the text says, not most; not some, is breathed out by God. So we define inspiration: God the Holy Spirit so supernaturally directed the human writers of Scripture that without waiving or overpowering their human intelligence, vocabulary, individuality, literary style, their personality, personal feelings, or any other human factor, His complete and coherent message to mankind was recorded with perfect accuracy in the original languages of Scripture, the very words bearing the authority of divine authorship.

c)      Plenary, verbal inspiration. Plenary means full, and the import is that the whole of Scripture is inspired. Verbal refers to the principle that every word is inspired, and this would go down to the very grammar, that it is important to distinguish between a present tense and an aorist tense, between an imperative mood and an indicative mood, etc.

   3. The role of the Holy Spirit. This is seen in 2 Peter 1:20, 21 NASB “But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is {a matter} of one’s own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” Here we see that on one side there is the role of the Holy Spirit and on the other side human involvement. That means that a message from God to the prophet was not a matter of that prophet’s interpretation; he doesn’t originate it; it didn’t come from him, it came from God. It was not generated by human will. The word for “move” is a present passive participle of phero [ferw]. The passive voice means that someone else does the action and they receive the action. phero is also used in Acts 27:15, 17 of a ship that is blown by the wind, and so when the blew the sails of the ship it took the ship wherever it went and the sailors had no control. So the Holy Spirit is moving them, they are under the direction of God the Holy Spirit, so that He is guaranteeing that the revelation he gives is being recorded without error. The Holy Spirit is the agent of revelation and when sinful, fallible men wrote, because the message didn’t originate from them, God controlled the process making it free from error.    4. This is the same kind of thing that we see in the birth of Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit overshadowed the fallible writers of Scripture to guarantee that their product would be infallible and inerrant. In the same way He overshadowed the sinner Mary. Luke 1: 26 NASB “Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city in Galilee called Nazareth, [27] to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the descendants of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary.” So Jesus Christ is going to be a descendant of Mary, who is from the house of David, biologically giving Him the right to rule as the greater son of David. But not Joseph because Joseph is a descendant of Jechoniah. [28] “And coming in, he [the angel] said to her, ‘Greetings, favored one! The Lord {is} with you’. [29] But she was very perplexed at {this} statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was. [30] The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary; for you have found favor with God. [31] And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. [32] He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; [33] and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end’.” Mary knows what that means; she understands all of the messianic implications. [34] “Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ [34] The angel answered and said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; and for that reason the holy Child shall be called the Son of God’.” So we see how God the Holy Spirit is able to come upon a fallible, fallen, sinful creature and still guarantee that the result is without sin. The import of the term “Son of God” is that He is full deity; He is divine. Matthew 1:18 NASB “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” In Luke we get the story of the conception and how she became pregnant by God the Holy Spirit conceiving the new life in her womb. Then Matthew gives us the birth. [20] “But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for the Child who has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit’.” Once again we have the emphasis that this is the Holy Spirit and that Jesus does not have a human father. [21] “She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins. [22] Now all this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: [23] ‘BEHOLD, THE VIRGIN SHALL BE WITH CHILD AND SHALL BEAR A SON, AND THEY SHALL CALL HIS NAME IMMANUEL,’ which translated means, ‘GOD WITH US’.”

Luke 2:1 NASB “Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. [2] This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. [3] And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. [4] Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, [5] in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. [6] While they were there, the days were completed for her to give birth. [7] And she gave birth to her firstborn son; and she wrapped Him in cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.”

This is where our Saviour was born. He is born the Son of God; He is born impeccable; He has no inherited sin nature; He has no imputation of Adam’s original sin. He is guaranteed perfect because He is born by the Holy Spirit. Just as the Holy Spirit was able to overshadow fallen human flesh and still produce a Saviour who was without sin, so God the Holy Spirit is able to overshadow human authors and guarantee that their product was free from human error and flaws. So we have an inerrant, infallible Word. This is what John refers to in 2 John 4 when he says, “I am writing this to you.” He knows he is writing Scripture; He knows that God the Holy Spirit is writing through him.

Times of the Gentiles

There are two important phrases we have to understand in relationship to God’s timetable in prophecy.  The first it the time of the Gentiles and the second is the fullness of the Gentiles and we’ll cover these under the doctrine of the times of the Gentiles.  The doctrine of the times of the Gentiles is covered in

‎ 

‎Point number one under the doctrine of the times of the Gentiles: it’s based on the Davidic Covenant and the Davidic kings were to be “king of kings.”  The Davidic kings had the potential to be the kings of kings, .  This potential was lost in the ancient world in 605 BC at the time that the Jews were first defeated by Nebuchadnezzar and the first group of captives were taken out and deported to Babylon.  Daniel was one of that group.  All during the period of the monarchy in Israel the Davidic kings were divinely vested with this potential for world supremacy.  However the fact that they violated God’s law and did not obey Him they lost that potential and it will only be restored to regenerate Israel in the millennium.  It is not ended for good because these were unconditional promises God made at the Abrahamic kingdom.

‎ 

‎The second point: in 605 BC potential world supremacy was turned over to the Gentiles and this time period of Gentile supremacy is referred to as the “times of the Gentiles,” in .  The context here is that Jesus is describing the Second Coming when He returns.  Let’s look at an overview of the chapter.  In we have the warning that the days of vengeance are coming.  “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then recognize that her desolation is at hand.  [21] Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, and let those who are in the midst of the city depart, and let not those who are in the country enter the city.”  Compare this with you realize that this takes place towards the end of the Tribulation, that at that time Jerusalem, according to is going to be attacked by four armies: the king of the north, the king of the south, the antichrist, the king of the west, and the king of the east with an army of two hundred million is going to be coming across the Euphrates, and they will all converge on Israel at a place called Har Megiddo in the Hebrew, and it’s come down in English as Armageddon, it’s the plain of Esdraelon north of Israel.  But it’s an eight stage battle and it culminates at the valley of Jehoshaphat right outside of Jerusalem.  So what Jesus is warning them is that when they see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then that is the time of the end and they need to evacuate and head for the hills, and get out of Jerusalem just as fast as possible.  These are then called “days of vengeance” in verse 22, “because these are the days of vengeance, in order that all things,” that is all prophecy, “all things which are written might be fulfilled.”

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, “Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days; for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people.”  Now it just occurred to me when I read that verse that there’s some confusion going on today that filters to me through various people who are listening to tapes around the country and one area of confusion is the result of some things that are said in the Left Behind novel series written by Tim LaHaye.  Now there are many good things in that, and remember it’s fiction, but nevertheless it reflects his theological understanding.  And he has a rather unusual understanding about what will take place at the rapture.  A lot of people wonder, well if I’m raptured, what about my kids if they haven’t reached the age of accountability.  And LaHaye thinks if your children haven’t reached the age of accountability then all children, all over the world, who haven’t reached the age of accountability will be raptured.

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‎Now there’s a problem with that.  See, if a child dies before reaching the age of accountability, and the age of accountability is the age at which they reach God-consciousness, where they can understand that God exists, where they realize that there’s something greater, that everything isn’t just here, that there must be a Creator, they recognize that there is a Creator, , and we studied which says that God has set eternity in the hearts of man, , “the heavens declare the glory of God, so all those passages indicate that every single person at some point reaches the stage of God-consciousness.  Some may be younger, some older, but at that age where they reach a knowledge that God exists and they’re able to understand and respond to the gospel, then they’re accountable.  They make a decision either to know God or not to know God.  If they’re positive at God-consciousness then God will bring them the gospel.  We see that that’s true with Nebuchadnezzar in this story and God is using all of this to bring Nebuchadnezzar to not only God-consciousness but to an understanding of the gospel and the need to respond in faith to the gospel. 

‎ 

‎The problem with LaHaye’s contention is that if a three year old who hasn’t reached the age of accountability at the time of the rapture is not taken at the rapture they don’t lose the opportunity to respond.  If you die at the age of three you’re never going to get that chance again, says that it’s appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment.  After you die there is no second chance.  But see, they don’t die at the rapture, and a three year old is going to live and be ten years of age by the end of the Tribulation, if that ten year old survives and during time they can make a decision for or against Christ.  So those children will live.  To me the more interesting question is what’s going to happen to the infants who are on the earth at the time of the Second Coming; are they going to automatically be saved and go into the millennial kingdom.

‎ 

‎Well, the Bible doesn’t answer all those questions and too often we have illegitimate speculation and what we need to realize is that God is just, He’s absolutely righteous and whatever he does will be fair and just.  He hasn’t specifically answered those kinds of questions but there is a warning here to mothers who are with child and to those who have babies, that this is a horrendous time of suffering.  , “Woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days, [for there will be great distress upon the land, and wrath to this people.]”  There’s no indication that just because they are babies and infants that somehow they’re going to be exempted from the horrors of the Tribulation.  So I do not agree at all, I think that LaHaye is on extremely shaky theological ground with that contention of his and there’s no Biblical support for it whatsoever, in fact it violates a number of principles.  So here in verse 23 there’s a warning to those who are there.

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, “And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles,” now this section up to now is a type of what’s going to happen in the Tribulation, which is what I’ve been talking about.  But the specific application of verse 20-24 is 70 AD, when Israel went out under divine discipline in 70 AD, it’s talking about at that time when all of this calamity came, that the children, the babies, those who were nursing were going to suffer all the calamity, all the distress that would come upon them, just as those in the Tribulation will at that time.  They are to flee.  This is used also as a type of what happens at the end of the Tribulation.  So it says when the Romans come, this is talking specifically about 70 AD, “they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”  And that’s where we get the phrase, “times of the Gentiles.”

‎ 

‎So tells us that there will be Gentile domination of Jerusalem.  So the question then comes, what is the beginning and what is the end of the times of the Gentiles.  When did the times of the Gentiles begin? 

There are basically two positions;

One is that the times of the Gentiles begins with , with the Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem in 605 BC. 

The other view is it didn’t begin until 70 AD.  

Before we get into the details on that we have to understand that there are three distinct interpretations of the times of the Gentiles.  We did a little introduction to prophecy and we looked at postmillennialism, amillennialism and premillennialism. 

Just to review,

Postmillennialism means that Jesus Christ returns at the end of the millennium.  The Church Age is gradually going to get to a point where the majority of people on the earth are believers, it’s going to be a time of unprecedented blessing, and it is at the end of that period that Christ will return.  We do not believe that’s what the Bible teaches.

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‎Amillennial position teaches that the current age is the time of the kingdom spiritually, and that Jesus is presently in heaven on a spiritualized Davidic throne, and that history will end when Jesus Christ returns and then we’ll go into the eternal state.  That’s the amillennial view. 

Post­millennialists interpret the times of the Gentiles as meaning Gentile possession of the spiritual promises of Israel.  The postmillennialist will say that what this means is Jerusalem represents the Jewish promises, they get into allegory here, they spiritualize it, Jerusalem isn’t physical Jerusalem it just represents all of Israel and it will be trampled down and they will no longer have the possession of the promises of the Old Testament and all those promises will be given to the Gentiles and Israel will never receive them again. 

Amillennialist add something to that; it’s very similar to the postmill view except they introduce the idea of judgment, that there will be judgment, the fulfillment of the times of the Gentiles indicates that Gentiles will be judged in that period of time.

‎ 

‎So if we were to diagram this, the postmill view says here we are, Jerusalem equals the promises, they’ve been nullified to Israel and they’ve been given to the Gentiles in this age and everything goes is optimistic and goes through a greater and greater period until Jesus Christ returns at the Second Coming.  Now the amill view is similar but the amill view introduces the idea that there will be a judgment on the Gentiles at the end, when the fullness of the Gentiles comes about. 

The Premillennial view is different.  The premillennial view looks at it this way; that from…and I believe the times of the Gentiles began in 605 BC, we’ll look at why in just a minute, that in 605 BC God had taken Israel out under the fifth cycle of discipline, the Gentiles are given political power and it is through the Gentiles that there will be, through the Gentile empires that there will be political stability on the earth.  The Jews are out under the fifth cycle of discipline, they do return in 535 BC and have…[tape turns]

‎ 

‎…always under the over-lordship of Gentiles, they are under the control of the Assyrians, they are under the control of the Romans, later they’re under the control of different Arab tribes after 70 AD, but they still are the source of spiritual blessing because that’s the basis in the Abrahamic Covenant.  The times of the Gentiles go until the Second Coming.  We’ll look at the term “fullness of the Gentiles” in a minute.  Fullness of the Gentiles ends at the rapture because that’s when the Church is evacuated to heaven and then there’s a return to a Jewish emphasis right after the rapture.  But the times of the Gentiles goes from 605 BC to the end of the Tribulation.

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‎Now let’s think through what this means; think through a couple of implications of this. 

First of all, we must distinguish between client nations and covenant nations.  This is not always done.  The term “client nation” itself is not a Biblical term; it is used to… it comes out of modern political parlance, really, just as the Soviet empire expanded into satellite nations into Eastern Europe, those were client nations; the same thing would be true with the United States.  Back during the time of the cold war there were certain nations that were our allies that we supported and then expanded and implemented our policies.  So the term “client nation” was adopted because God is using in human history not the nation He has chosen and called out, the Jews, but sort of second best, He’s operating through these second tier Gentile nations in order to bring about His plans and purposes for mankind.  He doesn’t have a covenant with them; there’s no covenant relationship between God and the Roman Empire, between God and the Frankish Empire, between God and the Holy Roman Empire, God and the United States of America, or God and the British.  There is no covenant there, but God is using those nations to protect Israel and to provide a base for missionary activity.

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‎For example, you go back to Ireland in about the 5th, 6th century AD and you discover that there was a tremendous revival that took place there, there were hundreds if not thousands of Irish that trusted the Lord under the ministry of Saint Patrick, and Patrick wasn’t Irish, he was a Britain and he was captured as a young boy and taken as a slave to Ireland, and then when he finally escaped he went back home, he had training, and he had a desire to take the gospel to the Irish.  Well, in a couple of generations from Patrick there were believers in the north of Ireland who then established a monastery on the island of Iona, out between Ireland and Scotland, and the head of the monastery was a monk by the name of Columba, and Columba taught the gospel, they copied the Scriptures, they translated the Scriptures to put it into the hands of ordinary people and they sent missionaries out into Scotland, back to Ireland, down into England, they sent missionaries to the Scandinavian countries and the gospel went all over northern England from that one little seminary base, that monastery on the island of Iona.  That’s the function of a client nation, that there’s a nation that is going to have believers there, that are going to send out missionaries and be a source of continuing the blessing of the gospel.  But that’s grounded, ultimately, in the Abrahamic Covenant, and in Israel.

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‎So we have to distinguish between client nations and covenant nations, and that Israel is a covenant nation and the Gentile nations are client nations.  If you don’t do that, and Israel is not held as something distinct, but if you think that she’s a client nation just like all the other Gentile client nations, then you’re forced to go into a 70 AD starting point for the times of the Gentiles because Israel has to go out completely before you can have the times of the Gentiles and there can be a shift, because you only have one client nation operating at one time in history.  But if Israel is distinct, and she is, then you can have a client nation existing at the same time as a covenant nation.  And Israel is existing as a covenant nation in the land but not all of them are in the land; remember the northern kingdom was taken out in captivity.  So you have the Hasmonean dynasty taking place during the 2nd century BC and you have Israel in the land during the 1st century under Roman dominion, and then you have a return of Jews to Israel at the present time.  But Israel, throughout all of these various manifestations, where there are Jews in the land and where there is an autonomous nation in the land, they are still there at the blessing of Gentile nations.  If the United States had not supported Israel in 1948 Israel would have been wiped out by the Arabs.  If the United States were not continuing its support of Israel, Israel would be overrun by the Arabs in a flash, but because there are nations, Gentile nations, supporting Israel and protecting Israel, there is a nation in the land but it still under the overlordship of Gentile client nations.

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‎So Israel went out under divine discipline in 605 BC and that started the time of Gentile dominance of Jerusalem.  This is further emphasized in by the statement, “they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled underfoot,” this is a present participle of the verb pateo, which means to walk on, to trample, to conquer, to control.  And it is used metaphorically of the idea of control.  And so Israel has generally been under the control, under the dominance of Gentile powers and exists… if there has been any peace, any independence, it’s been under the overlordship of a Gentile power ever since, and it will not end until the Second Coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Tongues

Tongues Speaking in Other Languages RD/1 Cor. 088

Our second passage is Acts 2, the historical inception of the spiritual gift of speaking in languages. The episode in Acts 2 describes the birth of the church. What happens?

1)      They do not pray for the Holy Spirit.

2)      They do not expect the overt signs.

3)      They do not expect to speak in languages; this was not something that was anticipated.

4)      There were two physical manifestations that accompanied the coming of the Holy Spirit; they had to do with sight and sound. The reason there is the sound and the sight is because the reception of the Holy Spirit is a non-visible event. In order to indicate that something is happening in the spiritual realm God caused this accompaniment of sight and sound with the descent of the Holy Spirit.

5)      As they began to speak in other languages it was as the Spirit gave them utterance. It is a gift of speech, not a gift of hearing.

6)      “…are not all these who are speaking Galileans?” In other words, the confusion wasn’t because they didn’t understand what was being said but because they recognized these men as Galileans.

7)      The group of hearers from various parts of the world may have represented as few as five different languages and as many as eleven.

8)      In verse 14, “But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven,” seems to suggest that Matthias was not with them.

Trinity

The Trinity        RD/Rev/234b

Definition: God exists in three equal persons—Father, Son and Holy Spirit: terms related to their roles, sometimes referred to as the economic Trinity because economy has to do with administration. The unity of the persons within the Trinity is so intimate that what can be said of one can be said of the other. In other words, if you have seen one you have seen the other. Each one is equally and fully God but, on the other hand, they are distinct—the Father is not the Holy Spirit, the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, etc.—they are equally distinct persons. So often we emphasize the distinction of their persons that we forget how intimate the unity is, and that is where the doctrine of perichoresis comes in.

Perichoresis

The definition of perichoresis is that it is the mutual indwelling—the Father indwells the Son, the Son indwells the Father, the Father indwells the Holy Spirit, etc—of each person of the Godhead in the other. It is said that the three are together a dynamic, interconnecting and intermingling unity. They each have full and total fellowship with the other. This is the only way that one or two unusual references that Jesus uses can be explained. John 14:10 NASB “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works. [11] Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.” In John 14:7 He says, “If you have seen me you have seen the Father.” This shows the unity that is there with the Father and the Son and the same is true with the Holy Spirit.

Tulip

Tulip is a five-letter acronym to define Calvinism.

Heb. 026b

   1. T is for total depravity.

T is for total depravity, but they actually mean total inability.  You can’t even exercise neutral positive volition to God.  You can’t do anything.  God does everything.  He even gives you positive volition.  So you have total inability.

   2. U is for unconditional election. 

The U is for unconditional election that God doesn’t base His choice on who will be saved and who won’t on any condition.  He just chooses.

   3. L is for limited atonement.

The L stands for limited atonement.  See, if God chose who would be saved, then that’s set in concrete so Jesus doesn’t need to die for those who aren’t chosen.  So He only dies for those who are chosen.

   4. I is for irresistible grace.

The I is irresistible grace or sometimes efficacious grace.  (This will confuse everybody here.  I have re-educate every young guy that goes to seminary.) Efficacious grace doesn’t mean in its historical theological context as almost every theologian has ever used it - efficacious grace does not mean that the Holy Spirit makes your faith efficacious for salvation.  Efficacious grace means that the Holy Spirit is going to give you the grace you need to be saved because you’re the elect.  It’s a Calvinistic term.  Some of you had it redefined for you which is not really kosher.  The term historically by every theologian for the last 500 years has meant that the Holy Spirit is going to irresistibly give you grace.  You can’t say no.  He is going to give you the grace you need to trust Christ as savior because He is going to give you the faith also.  That’s historic Calvinism.

   5. P is for the perseverance of the saints.

P is perseverance.  Perseverance isn’t - although some like Louis Sperry Chafer held to a non-lordship perseverance where for him perseverance of the saints was the perseverance of Christ.  But for most Calvinist and reformed theologians the P stands for the perseverance of the saints.  What it really means is that you persevere in good works so that you know that you’re saved.  If you don’t persevere in good works, then you didn’t have the right kind of faith.  You didn’t have efficacious grace and you just had a non-saving faith in Jesus.  So that’s how they define it.

Unbelievers, Three Things they Know

Three Things Unbeliever Know    RD/Heb. 052b

   1. They already know that God exists. 

   2. They are committed to a strategy of suppressing that truth.

   3. God the Holy Spirit is breaking through that with the gospel that you are presenting to them.   

Universalism:

Universalism:

The view that eventually, all human beings will find their rest in God and spend eternity in heaven. For some this does not exclude some time in fiery torments, maybe even a very long time, but eventually all will be in heaven.

Annihilationism:

The view that eternal punishment isn’t really eternal, that the unsaved will eventually be obliterated and no longer exist.

“What sort of God would He be who could rejoice eternally in heaven with the saved while downstairs the cries of the lost make an agonizing cacophony?” Green answers his own question: “Such a God is not the person revealed in Scripture as utterly just and utterly loving.” Green labels the traditional view of hell, “a doctrine of savagery.”

~Michael Green, Evangelism through the Local Church

“Christ, in Origen’s old words, remains on the Cross so long as one sinner remains in hell. That is not speculation; it is a statement grounded in the very necessity of God’s nature. In a universe of love there can be no heaven which tolerates a chamber of horrors, no hell for any which does not at the same time make it hell for God.”

~John A. T. Robinson

Victory: The Importance of It in the Believer Life

The importance of victory in the life of the believer   RD/1 John/040 

Victory is based first and foremost on the on the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. John 16:33 NASB “These things I have spoken to you, so that in [abiding in] Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

Victory is often expressed in relationship to the cosmic system which is Satan’s classroom for inculcating his values, his ideals, his priorities into both believer and unbeliever. Believers can be dominated by cosmic thinking and that is exactly the problem that John is going to address.

Victory is not an absolute but is the believer’s in successive stages. Victory is won at the cross and then there are successive stages in each development. 1 John 5:4, 5. “For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith.” This is not faith just in the sense of trusting but what is trusted, the object of faith which is doctrine. The starting point is belief in the deity of Christ, v. 5.

Satan’s modus operandi towards the unbeliever is to deceive the unbeliever in relationship to the gospel but towards the believer it is to deceive the believer in terms of the priorities of spiritual life, the priority of doctrine, and the priority of spiritual growth. 2 Corinthians 4:4; 11:13.

There are levels of victory that advance beyond the initial victory of salvation. Salvation is a grace operation. Heaven is not a reward, it is a gift; but rewards, crowns, are for what we do, how we grow, the capacity developed in this life. Rewards are not gifts by definition, they are something extra given for what we have done.   

Vine Analogy

The Vine Analogy    RD/John 081

1.             The vine here is the grape vine. The hills along the Kidron Valley outside of Jerusalem are covered with grape vines, and as Jesus and the disciples left the upper room and were walking along the hill side the hills were covered with grape vines. This isn’t by chance. God created the grape vine; He created the topography of Jerusalem. The fact that it is a growth area for the grape vine is not a chance encounter. God specifically designed things so that this event would take place, that Jesus would go by the grape vines, and he would use this as an analogy of the believer’s relationship to Himself.

2.             God created the grape vine in order to teach certain things about the Christian life and then Christian’s relationship to God. The same refers to the sheep. God created the sheep so that He could utilize it as an analogy to teach certain things about the life of the believer. One thing we learn about the vine is that the wood itself is useless. You can take the wood of the vine and burn it to make heat. You can’t use it to make furniture or to make weapons. The wood itself is virtually useless. It is good for only one thing: producing fruit. In the same way we could say that the believer is relatively useless. He is not good in and of himself, he is only good because of what Christ has done for him, and what He has supplied for him. What the believer is designed for is the production of fruit. Ephesians 2:10.

3.             The purpose for planting the vine is equivalent to salvation, but you don’t plant the vine just for the enjoyment of its growth. The purpose is in the end result which is the production of fruit.

4.             Only mature plants produce fruit. Immature plants are to continue to grow. The implications for this is profound. Think about it. The purpose of a plant is to produce fruit but it doesn’t produce fruit until it is mature. All the time it is maturing it has to be fed all the right nutrients under the right conditions, and then it absorbs all of that nutrition from the soil in order to produce fruit. The same is true of the believer. You don’t really start producing fruit in your life until you are a mature believer. In many churches fruit is defined as going to prayer meeting, having your daily devotions, reading your Bible every day, giving to the church, witnessing, etc. The Scriptures do not define that as production, that is the function of the believer’s priesthood, not production. It is not related to fruit. When talking about fruit—for example, in Galatians 5:22, 23—the fruit/production of the Holy Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” etc. Production of fruit is character, an inner transformation of the soul into the character of Jesus Christ. That takes time, it take the proper nutrition, the proper feeding and handling. And what is that based on? Two things: the filling by means of God the Holy Spirit—Ephesians 5:18; and the content of that filling is the Word of Christ—Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” 1 Peter 2:2 commands us to desire the sincere milk of the Word, “that you may grow by it.” It is only by means of the Word of God that we grow. Spiritual growth is the result of the right nourishment which comes exclusively from the Word of God under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So the believer is like a plant. He puts his roots down in that soil of Bible class, week in and week out, over and over again, so that his mind becomes saturated with doctrine, his soul absorbs those spiritual nutrients. The result of that is growth. It is slow, it takes time, and it may be imperceptible to the believer for a while, but the Holy Spirit (if you are filled with the Spirit) is working and over time transformation takes place. When a believer grows to maturity, then he sees the fruit.

5.             Fruit must be distinguished from the growth of the plant, its stem and its leaves. Don’t confuse the leaves, the buds and the stem with fruit, that is the immature believer going from infancy to maturity. Fruit only comes at maturity; it is the end result. Life doesn’t begin when we are an adult!

6.       The quality of the fruit is dependant on the nourishment plant. What is nourishing your soul? What is it that you spend time on absorbing into your soul? Is it the human viewpoint concepts of the cosmic system? Or is it Bible doctrine? Romans 12:2—“And do not be conformed to this world [cosmos], but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking” through the study of God’s Word.

John 15:2 NASB “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He [God the Father, the vinedresser] takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it -may bear more fruit.” We have a major interpretive problem to resolve here. What does it mean to “take away”? What happens to this unfruitful branch? There are three ways that this is handled. First of all, some say that unfruitful means that this is merely a professing but not a genuine believer. John nowhere recognizes that kind of distinction in the Gospel. The second interpretive position that is taken on this is that the believers that are “taken away” are those who lose their salvation. The third position and the one that is the true position is that the unfruitful believers experience divine discipline. The words “taken away” is a mistranslation. The Greek word is EIRO [e)irw] which can mean to take away or remove, but it also means to lift up. In Israel, when you go out into the fields and see the vineyards out there, the lower branches on the vine that may be weak are propped up by rocks, so that by the elevation they are strengthened and then produce fruit. That is the meaning of this particular word. It does not have to do with removal (there is removal in verse 6 which has to do with the sin unto death). Unfruitful believers experience divine discipline in time and lose rewards in eternity.

In order to resolve these interpretive problems and to understand this so that we know what Jesus is talking about throughout this chapter we need to do some word study. Words are the substance of thought. Without words we can’t think. Words have significance and meaning. Jesus is going to choose His words carefully. The writer of Scripture says that every word is inspired by God. Since the New Testament was written originally in Greek we have to cross that language barrier. If we run past this we run the danger of false interpretation, so we have to stop and look at some terminology here.

The first phrase that is important is “in me.” Paul uses a phrase that is unique to him: “in Christ.” He uses the phrase to refer to our positional union with Christ. It is a forensic or legal term that is used to talk about the fact that at the moment of faith in Christ the believer is united with Christ inseparably for all eternity. That is a legal concept based upon justification. This is not how John uses the word; he has something different in mind. When Jesus uses this vine analogy (because “in me” is in the vine) is this the same significance as the vine analogy used throughout the Old Testament in reference to Israel. For example, in Psalm 80; Hosea 5:1-7; Jeremiah 5:10, and other passages, Israel is identified as the vine. The problem with going back into the Old Testament is that it is a different concept.

            Understanding the problem

   1. Remember we have to distinguish between Israel and the Church. They are two separate entities in human history. God has one plan and purpose for Israel and another plan and purpose for the Church. Israel was a covenant people viewed as a whole which included both saved and unsaved. The Church is just believers, the invisible body of Christ composed only of believers. So when Jesus speaks of those “in Me” it cannot include unbelievers.

   2. Neither the image of the vine nor the context of John 15 relates to the broad kingdom of God. We can’t read Matthew 13 into John.

   3. In the Gospel of John there is no concept of true and false believers. If you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ you are saved, there is no concept of a false or a pseudo faith.

   4. We conclude it cannot include some form of sub group of true believers within a mass of professing believers. It is not showing us this false comparison of true and false believers.

   5. The preposition EN [e)n] in the Greek can have a variety of meanings but when it is used with the personal pronoun, like in “in Me”, it describes a close rapport or personal fellowship. So “in Me” is talking about “in fellowship with Me,” those who have a close personal relationship. He is not talking about salvation in this analogy. This is not talking about salvation, it is talking about the fact that fruit bearing is a consequence of being in fellowship with the Lord. If the believer is not drawing his nourishment from Christ on a day to day basis there is no growth, no advance, no fruit bearing.

   6. Paul uses the phrase to describe the believer’s position in Christ, but John uses the phrase simply to describe intimate relationship. Cf. John 10:38; 16:33; 17:21, 22, 23. If “in Me” in John was positional then Jesus would not be praying that it would be brought about, it would not be potential, be actual. It would have already existed from salvation onward. The conclusion that we must take from this is that “in Me” is not legal positional, i.e. phase one salvation, it is a relational term. That is our first clue to interpreting this passage. Jesus is talking about that relationship fellowship, He is not talking about salvation.

Vine Analogy is used.-So we have to learn how the

Vine Analogy is used.-So we have to learn how the RD/John/081

1.             The vine here is the grape vine. The hills along the Kidron Valley outside of Jerusalem are covered with grape vines, and as Jesus and the disciples left the upper room and were walking along the hill side the hills were covered with grape vines. This isn’t by chance. God created the grape vine; He created the topography of Jerusalem. The fact that it is a growth area for the grape vine is not a chance encounter. God specifically designed things so that this event would take place, that Jesus would go by the grape vines, and he would use this as an analogy of the believer’s relationship to Himself.

2.             God created the grape vine in order to teach certain things about the Christian life and then Christian’s relationship to God. The same refers to the sheep. God created the sheep so that He could utilize it as an analogy to teach certain things about the life of the believer. One thing we learn about the vine is that the wood itself is useless. You can take the wood of the vine and burn it to make heat. You can’t use it to make furniture or to make weapons. The wood itself is virtually useless. It is good for only one thing: producing fruit. In the same way we could say that the believer is relatively useless. He is not good in and of himself, he is only good because of what Christ has done for him, and what He has supplied for him. What the believer is designed for is the production of fruit. Ephesians 2:10.

3.             The purpose for planting the vine is equivalent to salvation, but you don’t plant the vine just for the enjoyment of its growth. The purpose is in the end result which is the production of fruit.

4.             Only mature plants produce fruit. Immature plants are to continue to grow. The implications for this is profound. Think about it. The purpose of a plant is to produce fruit but it doesn’t produce fruit until it is mature. All the time it is maturing it has to be fed all the right nutrients under the right conditions, and then it absorbs all of that nutrition from the soil in order to produce fruit. The same is true of the believer. You don’t really start producing fruit in your life until you are a mature believer. In many churches fruit is defined as going to prayer meeting, having your daily devotions, reading your Bible every day, giving to the church, witnessing, etc. The Scriptures do not define that as production, that is the function of the believer’s priesthood, not production. It is not related to fruit. When talking about fruit—for example, in Galatians 5:22, 23—the fruit/production of the Holy Spirit is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,” etc. Production of fruit is character, an inner transformation of the soul into the character of Jesus Christ. That takes time, it take the proper nutrition, the proper feeding and handling. And what is that based on? Two things: the filling by means of God the Holy Spirit—Ephesians 5:18; and the content of that filling is the Word of Christ—Colossians 3:16, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.” 1 Peter 2:2 commands us to desire the sincere milk of the Word, “that you may grow by it.” It is only by means of the Word of God that we grow. Spiritual growth is the result of the right nourishment which comes exclusively from the Word of God under the filling of the Holy Spirit. So the believer is like a plant. He puts his roots down in that soil of Bible class, week in and week out, over and over again, so that his mind becomes saturated with doctrine, his soul absorbs those spiritual nutrients. The result of that is growth. It is slow, it takes time, and it may be imperceptible to the believer for a while, but the Holy Spirit (if you are filled with the Spirit) is working and over time transformation takes place. When a believer grows to maturity, then he sees the fruit.

5.             Fruit must be distinguished from the growth of the plant, its stem and its leaves. Don’t confuse the leaves, the buds and the stem with fruit, that is the immature believer going from infancy to maturity. Fruit only comes at maturity; it is the end result. Life doesn’t begin when we are an adult!

6.       The quality of the fruit is dependant on the nourishment plant. What is nourishing your soul? What is it that you spend time on absorbing into your soul? Is it the human viewpoint concepts of the cosmic system? Or is it Bible doctrine? Romans 12:2—“And do not be conformed to this world [cosmos], but be transformed by the renovation of your thinking” through the study of God’s Word.

John 15:2 NASB “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He [God the Father, the vinedresser] takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it, that it -may bear more fruit.” We have a major interpretive problem to resolve here. What does it mean to “take away”? What happens to this unfruitful branch? There are three ways that this is handled. First of all, some say that unfruitful means that this is merely a professing but not a genuine believer. John nowhere recognizes that kind of distinction in the Gospel. The second interpretive position that is taken on this is that the believers that are “taken away” are those who lose their salvation. The third position and the one that is the true position is that the unfruitful believers experience divine discipline. The words “taken away” is a mistranslation. The Greek word is EIRO [e)irw] which can mean to take away or remove, but it also means to lift up. In Israel, when you go out into the fields and see the vineyards out there, the lower branches on the vine that may be weak are propped up by rocks, so that by the elevation they are strengthened and then produce fruit. That is the meaning of this particular word. It does not have to do with removal (there is removal in verse 6 which has to do with the sin unto death). Unfruitful believers experience divine discipline in time and lose rewards in eternity.

Vinedresser

Vinedresser      Heb. 066b

  1. The vinedresser is the Father.  The Father has been mentioned some 23 times in the context already.  Remember the context. It starts on the night before Jesus goes to the cross.  He is with the 12 disciples in the Upper Room and He is washing their feet.  In that process He talks to Peter about the fact that he needed to have his feet washed.

Peter says, “No Lord, You are not going to wash my feet.” 

The Lord said, “Yes, if you don’t let me wash your feet then you don’t have any inheritance, any role or any portion with Me.”

The technical word there is meros indicating an inheritance portion.   

Peter said, “Well Lord, wash all of me.”

The Lord said, “No, you are already clean.”

The key word there – it is the same word we are going to see in verse 3 - already cleaned indicating everybody there was already saved.

He says, “All of you are clean except one.”

Of course that is Judas.  Then there is the episode where He hands the sop to Judas and Judas leaves. Eleven remain.   Those 11 are all believers.   From that point on (the middle of chapter 13) Jesus is addressing 11 believers.  I think that is very important to the understanding of this passage.  Jesus isn’t talking to a mixed group of unbelievers and believers.  He is not talking to a group of unbelievers.  The focus is not helping them understand how to be saved, how to be justified.  They are already saved and justified.  He is talking to them about how to maintain a relationship with Him once He leaves.  That is the whole focus of the middle of John 13 through the high priestly prayer in John 17.  He is giving them Church Age truth.  He is going to be going to the cross the next day.  He talks about His relationship with the Father. He talks about the Father sending another Comforter.  He talks about the Holy Spirit coming.  The Holy Spirit will lead them into all truth and guide them and direct them.  Here He talks about their future relationship with Him.  So the Father has already been mentioned 23 times.  In this context the Father is presented in terms of one who is particularly, intimately involved with them and has a personal caring relationship for them. It is not some sort of abstract deity out there in the outer reaches of the universe somewhere.

   2. The vine is a grape vine.  The hills along the Kidron Valley outside of Jerusalem would be lined with grape vines at this time.  What time of the year is it? It is the night before Passover.  It is the spring.  It is very important to understand that in terms of the analogy that the Lord is going to use here.

   3. God supernaturally designed the vine to teach things just as He did with sheep. There are a lot of these creation analogies that you find that are used in the Scripture because God knew What He was going to do ahead of time.

He said, “Okay, I have got to illustrate certain principles so I am going to create an animal or a plant that is going to have certain characteristics so that I can use that to illustrate doctrinal principles.”

So the vine is useless for anything other than what it produces.  You can’t use it for firewood.  You can’t use it in building furniture.  You can’t go out and build a home out of it.  It is pretty much useless except for what it produces for the benefit of the vinedresser.

   4. Another thing about the grape vine is that the plants will last the vinedresser for years, for decades.  The same plants if they are not destroyed by a disease or something else he goes back and he gets to know those plants.  According to what Gary Erickson writes each plant - some plants may seem hardier than other plants.  If you care about gardens at all whether it is flowers or whether you are growing a vegetable garden, you know that some plants just seem to survive everything and others seem very frail or weak just like people.  Every plant is different.  The grape vines are very different. The vinedresser learns their characteristics and deals with each one on an individual basis.

   5. The purpose for planting the vine which is where life begins (important analogy there) is equivalent to salvation.  If planting is equivalent to salvation, the purpose for planting the vine is to produce fruit.  Ephesians 2:10 is a verse that many of us don’t pay particular attention to. We know that two previous verses.

Virgin Birth

The Virgin Birth: five basic questions RD/2 John 008

   1. Why the Saviour needed to be a full member of the human race.

a)      To be a substitute for mankind. Only a true member of the race could die as a substitute for the human race. Like must substitute for like. This is one reason animal sacrifices could never do anything in relationship to sin. They were only training aids related to ritual observance that taught spiritual principles. Hebrews 10:4 NASB “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”

b)      To be a mediator. A mediator needs to be fully equal with both parties in conflict. Thus the mediator needed to be fully equal with mankind. Jesus Christ is the one and only mediator between God and man, 1 Timothy 2:5 NASB “For there is one God, {and} one mediator also between God and men, {the} man Christ Jesus.”

c)      To fulfil the office of priest. To be our high priest—He is a king-priest, 1 Peter 2:9—a priest must be a part of the group he is representing, therefore the priest had to be fully human in order to represent man before God. Jesus Christ became true humanity in order to be our high priest after the order of Melchizedek. Hebrews 7:4, 5,

d)      To be Israel’s Messiah. The Saviour had to be a man to fulfil the requirements of Israel’s Messiah, Isaiah 53:3-7.

e)      To fulfil Old Testament prophecy. He was to be a descendent of Abraham, the seed of Abraham, Genesis 22:18. He was going to be from the tribe of Judah, Genesis 49:9, 10. He would be from the root of Jesse, Isaiah 11:1.

f)       To fulfil God’s covenant with David He had to be in rhe physical line of David, 2 Samuel 7:8-16; Psalm 89:20-37.

g)      To fulfil the office of prophet—Jesus Christ is prophet, priest and king.

h)      In order to pioneer the spiritual life of the church age believer, based on the filling of God the Holy Spirit.

i)        Old Testament prophecies and types teach His humanity. Example. In the construction of the ark of the ark of the covenant. It was made from acacia wood and it was covered with gold. The acacia wood represents the humanity of Christ; the gold represents the deity of Christ. Therefore it represents the hypostatic union. Second example: Melchizedek, the king-priest of Salem is a type or shadow of Christ as king-priest. Therefore to fulfil the type He must be truly human. Genesis 14:18; Psalm 110:4; cf. Hebrews 6:20; 7:23. Third example: Moses was a type of Christ as deliverer and prophet, Exodus 2:2. Fourth, in Isaiah 7:14 the promised Messiah is called Immanuel, which means God with us. That indicates His humanity.

   2. Why must the Saviour be fully God?

      a)   No human being could be qualified to go to the cross because every human being would be a sinner. So no human being alone could satisfy the requirements to go to the cross and pay the sin

             penalty for the human race. No angel could substitute for the human race because, once again, there is the principle of like being a substitute for like and angels could not substitute for humanity.

             No other creature could serve the role because of the principle of substitution. Therefore the creator Himself must substitute. He was the only option for a Saviour.

      b)   A second reason the substitute must be fully God is that only one with perfect righteousness could qualify. And He would be the source for the imputation of righteousness, so he would have to have a righteousness that could be imputed to others in the race.

     c)    Only deity could provide the substitute that would have infinite value. If the Saviour was to die for all mankind He had to pay a penalty that would have value for more than one, in fact a value that could pay the penalty for all mankind.

   3. If the Saviour must be true humanity then why couldn’t He enter history by two human parents? First, this would not distinguish Him in any way from any other member of the human race. Nothing would identify Him as being unique. Second, if he was born with two human parents He would still inherit a sin nature from His parents like everyone else and thus would not be qualified to go to the cross. Therefore, if the Saviour must be fully God and fully man, and if the birth could not be through two human parents, then His entry must be through a unique birth. We must keep a distinction between the concept of the virgin birth or virgin conception and the incarnation. The virgin conception is merely the means to bring about the end, which is the incarnation. The incarnation itself includes much more than the birth of the Saviour, it involves the entire principle of the hypostatic union and its purposes and outworking. So incarnation has to do with the hypostatic union and the consequences of it, whereas the virgin conception and birth merely focuses on the means to the end.

   4. Why the virgin birth? Some will say that the purpose of the virgin birth is simply to provide a sign. Isaiah said there would be a sign, a virgin would conceive. So that some would say that the virgin birth is simply a miraculous sign to show that God was doing something unique. But is this restricted to simply that purpose? Is the virgin birth simply something that provides a miraculous note to announce the arrival of the Saviour? It is certainly true that that may be the only reason but that seems unlikely simply because the virgin birth is clearly taught in only two New Testament passages: Luke 1 and Matthew 1. The New Testament does not make a major issue out of the virgin birth—not that it is not important. Historically it wasn’t known to anyone other than Mary and Joseph, and possibly Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. The point is that while it was a miracle and it was a sign, it was a very quiet sign at the time, and a very much overlooked miracle.

a)      The Saviour couldn’t just appear on the scene; He couldn’t just materialise out of nowhere, He had to be true humanity.

b)      A second idea that has come up in history is that deity was added after birth, the position that in the early church was known as adoptionism.

c)      Therefore He had to appear through normal birth, but it couldn’t be through copulation between two parents. It has to be something that blocks the inheritance of the sin nature.

d)       We must realise that there can be no doubt at all about Jesus’ genuine and permanent humanity. He is still in hypostatic union as the resurrected Lord sitting at the right hand of God the Father.

e)      The problem is the inherited sin from Adam, Romans 5:12. How is the sin nature kept from being passed on to Jesus? The only real solution to this is to recognise the principle of Scripture that it is Adam who is the head of the race, it is Adam’s sin that resulted in the fall of the human race (not the woman’s), and therefore it is through the male that the sin nature is passed down.

   5. The mechanics of the virgin birth.

a)      Adam’s sin in the garden was the origination of the sin nature in the human race. Romans 5:12, “in Adam all die.” Genesis 1:26, 27 says that God created the male and the female in His image, but

      in Genesis 5 when we are given the genealogy we are told that when Adam fathered a son that son was not in the image of God, he was in the image of Adam. So that every descendant from

      that point on is born in the image of Adam, i.e. fallen and a participant in Adam’s original sin, and under corruption from that original sin.

b)      Although both the man and the woman in the garden were equally guilty of sin, the woman’s sin wasn’t the issue. She wasn’t the designated head of the human race. The issue was the sin of

      Adam as the federal head of the human race. The woman’s sin was due to her deception, 1 Timothy 2:14, and his sin was a sin of full cognisance. Therefore his sin was the determinative and the

      crucial sin. The result, therefore, is that though both the man and the woman have a sin nature only the male transmits the sin nature through the fertilisation of the female ovum.   

c)      The sin nature clearly has a physical dimension as expressed in the Scripture. This is communicated through the use of terms such as flesh in Romans 8:3 plus numerous other passages; the body

      of sin in Romans 6:6. Therefore all the cells in our body are contaminated by the sin nature. It impacts our physical body and orients us in the direction of rebellion against God. We are born with

      this sin nature, this capacity for evil and orientation towards rebelliousness, that affects every single cell in our body. It is to that sin nature that God the Father imputes Adam’s original sin at the instant of our birth. We not only have a sin nature, which means that we are born corrupt, but through the imputation of Adam’s original sin we are just as guilty of Adam’s sin as he is and are partakers of spiritual death.

d)      In physical procreation the sin nature is then passed down through the male. At birth the guilt of Adam’s original sin is imputed to that sin nature. So at procreation the sin nature is passed down through the male.

e)      The sperm has 23 chromosomes that comes from the male. When the egg is first generated it has 46 chromosomes. Then through a process known as meiosis the egg throws off 23 of these

chromosomes in what are called polar bodies. That leaves 23 chromosomes that have been purified through this process. So what happens in the virgin birth is that God the Holy Spirit miraculously fertilises these 23 chromosomes. He creates a new and unique life that is fully human but does not inherit anything from Adam. He supplies the other 23 chromosomes necessary for life to begin and the result is the birth of Jesus of Narareth who is minus a sin nature. Because He was born without a home for the imputation of Adam’s original sin and He is born with perfect righteousness in His humanity just as Adam was originally created with perfect righteousness. Therefore Jesus is called the second Adam.

   6. Since it is only the male 23 chromosomes that carry the sin nature, not the female, that means if the woman has a virgin pregnancy, if her ovum is fertilised apart from human male involvement, then the progeny would be born minus a sin nature. This is how the humanity of Jesus Christ was generated. The result is known as the hypostatic union.

Walking

Walking  RD/Gal/054

 Walking is one of the best forms of exercise. Whenever you walk it develops a circulation of your bloodstream; it improves your breathing, it has an aerobic effect on your cardiovascular system; it supports the regular elimination of waste; and it strengthens your heart muscle. So let’s take those factors and develop the analogy to the spiritual life.

a)                            When it comes to walking in the spiritual life, first of all it works out all the muscles of the spiritual life which are the spiritual skills. So when you walk by the Spirit you are exercising all of the spiritual skills; you are developing the muscles of the spiritual life. 

b)                            It increases the circulation of doctrine in your soul. The more you use doctrine in your soul the more you will develop the ability to utilize it. The less you use it the more you will lose it.

c)                            Just as physical walking has an aerobic effect on the body it has a spiritual aerobic effect and improves the inhale and exhale of Bible doctrine. The more you walk by means of the Spirit the more you will be taking in the Word of God and the more you will be applying the Word of God.

d)                            It will eliminate the waste of human viewpoint in the soul as you renovate the thinking of the soul. It will eliminate the waste of human viewpoint and replace it with the divine viewpoint of Bible doctrine.

e)                            In the process your soul will be strengthened and edified through the construction of the soul fortress which protects and defends the soul from the outside pressure of adversity and prosperity.

When we analyze the use of the word “walking” in the New Testament there are three categories that we can summarize.

First, we have the phrase EN [e)n] plus the dative, or sometimes just the dative, of sphere. We are to walk in the day—Romans 13:13; in the light—Ephesians 5:8; and negatively, we are not to walk in the sphere of darkness—1 John 1:7. So our Christian life is to be in a certain sphere.

Secondly, we are to walk in [the sphere of] newness of life—Romans 6:4. We are to walk in the sphere of love—Ephesians 5:2; 2 John 6. We are to walk in [the sphere of] good works [divine good produced by the Holy Spirit] and were saved for that purpose—Ephesians 2:10. We are to walk in wisdom—Colossians 4:5. We are to walk in truth—2 John 4; 3 John 3,4.

Negatively, we are not to walk in the emptiness (vanity—the vacuum in the soul created by human viewpoint) of the emptiness of the mentality of our soul “like the Gentiles do”—Ephesians 4:17. We are not to walk in craftiness—2 Corinthians 4:2, the Greek word means deceitful cunning, and the context refers to utilizing the Word of God for our own personal gain, power, prestige, financial gain, or personal approbation.

            The next way this preposition EN plus the dative is used is to express instrumentality or means.

There are two concepts here:

we are to walk by means of faith, the faith-rest drill in 2 Corinthians 5:7, and this is contrasted, “not by sight.” This is empiricism and relates to the ultimate way in which we think, the basis for our thought. Do we base our thinking on the Scriptures or do we base it on human viewpoint systems of knowledge such as rationalism or empiricism? This is a reference to the ultimate, the final basis for our thinking: Is the final authority in our life, the Word of God, or is it human experience or human thought? When the Word of God is more real to us than our feelings, experience, or what we have been taught in school, then we are beginning to understand what it means to exercise the faith-rest drill.

The second is in Galatians 5:16 & 25, and that is by means of the Holy Spirit. So we have EN plus the dative of sphere to describe the sphere in which we are to walk, and then we have EN plus the instrumental dative of means—“by means of faith, not by sight,” and by means of God the Holy Spirit.

            Then we have another prepositional phrase that is often associated with walking, and that uses the Greek preposition KATA [kata], and that means to walk according to a norm or standard.

We are to walk according to the norm of the Holy Spirit and not according to the norm or standard of the flesh—Romans 8:4. According to the standard of love—Romans 14:15. Negatively, Not according to the standard of men—1 Corinthians 3:3, referring to carnality and the unbeliever (not according to normal human standards); not according to disorderly or licentious manner—2 Thessalonians 3:6; not according to the course of this world—Ephesians 3:2, referring to the lifestyle of the unbeliever.

            So that is a summary describing how critical walking is in the Christian life.

When we analyze the use of the word “walking” in the New Testament there are three categories that we can summarize. First, we have the phrase EN [e)n] plus the dative, or sometimes just the dative, of sphere. We are to walk in the day—Romans 13:13; in the light—Ephesians 5:8; and negatively, we are not to walk in the sphere of darkness—1 John 1:7. So our Christian life is to be in a certain sphere. Secondly, we are to walk in [the sphere of] newness of life—Romans 6:4. We are to walk in the sphere of love—Ephesians 5:2; 2 John 6. We are to walk in [the sphere of] good works [divine good produced by the Holy Spirit] and were saved for that purpose—Ephesians 2:10. We are to walk in wisdom—Colossians 4:5. We are to walk in truth—2 John 4; 3 John 3,4. Negatively, we are not to walk in the emptiness (vanity—the vacuum in the soul created by human viewpoint) of the emptiness of the mentality of our soul “like the Gentiles do”—Ephesians 4:17. We are not to walk in craftiness—2 Corinthians 4:2, the Greek word means deceitful cunning, and the context refers to utilizing the Word of God for our own personal gain, power, prestige, financial gain, or personal approbation.

            The next way this preposition EN plus the dative is used is to express instrumentality or means. There are two concepts here: we are to walk by means of faith, the faith-rest drill in 2 Corinthians 5:7, and this is contrasted, “not by sight.” This is empiricism and relates to the ultimate way in which we think, the basis for our thought. Do we base our thinking on the Scriptures or do we base it on human viewpoint systems of knowledge such as rationalism or empiricism? This is a reference to the ultimate, the final basis for our thinking: Is the final authority in our life, the Word of God, or is it human experience or human thought? When the Word of God is more real to us than our feelings, experience, or what we have been taught in school, then we are beginning to understand what it means to exercise the faith-rest drill. The second is in Galatians 5:16 & 25, and that is by means of the Holy Spirit. So we have EN plus the dative of sphere to describe the sphere in which we are to walk, and then we have EN plus the instrumental dative of means—“by means of faith, not by sight,” and by means of God the Holy Spirit.

            Then we have another prepositional phrase that is often associated with walking, and that uses the Greek preposition KATA [kata], and that means to walk according to a norm or standard. We are to walk according to the norm of the Holy Spirit and not according to the norm or standard of the flesh—Romans 8:4. According to the standard of love—Romans 14:15. Negatively, Not according to the standard of men—1 Corinthians 3:3, referring to carnality and the unbeliever (not according to normal human standards); not according to disorderly or licentious manner—2 Thessalonians 3:6; not according to the course of this world—Ephesians 3:2, referring to the lifestyle of the unbeliever.

            So that is a summary describing how critical walking is in the Christian life.

The basis for walking

a)      The basis for walking, i.e. the Christian way of life, is our identification with Christ’s death (our positional death) which happens at the instant of salvation. At that instant the power of the sin nature in the believer’s life is broken. The issue now is volition.

b)      Positional death frees us from the slavery to the sin nature, according to Romans 6:6, but it does not free us from the sin nature.

c)      The potential is there for every believer but it is activated only by his volition. Whether or not you walk in newness of life is up to you.

d) The goal or purpose is to no longer obey the dictates of the sin nature, so that you can advance spiritually.

Will of God

The Will of God  RD/James/080-081

This introduces the whole concept of the will of God. How do we know the will of God? This is a pressing issue, especially for young people. For those of us who are a little more seasoned it is not always a pressing issue, especially if there is some level of stability in the life. The answer is very simple doctrinally. Sometimes it is not simple experientially because it gets all caught up with our agenda versus God’s agenda.

1)      The term “will of God” relates to God’s sovereign volition with regard to His creation. Will indicates volition.

2)      There are three general categories to the will of God. The first is God’s sovereign will—what happens is what God decreed. God’s sovereign will includes His permissive will; it includes the existence of sin and evil. The second category is God’s revealed will which is also sometimes referred to as God’s moral will or His desired will. These are the absolutes in God’s Word, the principles and precepts, the mandates of Scripture. The Third category  is God’s overriding will. Many times we make decisions that are in contrast to God’s revealed will. His sovereign will allows it but sometimes He overrides the decision or the consequences of that decision.

3)      The specifics of God’s decreed will are mostly unknown. We don’t know what God’s sovereign will is or what His decreed will is until it happens. History is the outworking of the sovereign will of God, in other words. We don’t know what tomorrow entails, what God permits, until it happens.

4)      We can only know the specifics of God’s revealed or moral will, and that is in His Scripture. That is all the precepts, mandates and prohibitions that we find in the Scriptures. There are 78 imperative mood verbs in James alone. That means in the New Testament there may be as many as a thousand imperative verbs for the believer. This defines the boundaries of the Christian’s life. Prohibitions are outside; the positive mandates and commands are inside. “This is the will of God, that you abstain from fornication,” a real, clear and precise statement. “Pray without ceasing,” that is the will of God for your life. So part of the answer to the question, What is God’s will for my life? is, are you doing what the Scripture says to do? About 70 or 80 70 or 80 per cent of the time that really is all that matters. Are you doing this? Are you living within the revealed will of God?

The will of God is more like this. You have a circle defining God’s will. As long as you are filled with the Spirit, walking by means of the Spirit, learning doctrine, assimilating into your thinking, operating on divine viewpoint thinking, applying doctrine and all of the precepts of God’s Word. You are in the will of God. If God has a specific geographical will for you. or a specific operational will, you can’t escape it. Jonah tried.

5)      God may not always have a specific geographical or operational will for our life, the issue is how we make the decision. When He does, He will make it clear to us.

6)      Knowing God’s will is based on the grace learning spiral, that God the Holy Spirit teaches us doctrine, are we responsive to His teaching and responding to the challenges of Scripture, and responding to His guiding and leading? for the Holy Spirit always leads us if we are sons of God, according to Romans 8 and Galatians 5:18.

7)      The geographical will of God relates to operating in a specific location.   

There are times when God might have a specific will for your life, and sometimes He doesn’t. More often than not God does not have a specific will for our life. We talk about categories of God’s will: God’s geographical will, God’s operational will. These have to do with specific plans that God has for us at particular times. But most of the time all we are dealing with is God’s sovereign will, which is secret, and God’s revealed will, which is found in the Scriptures.

Verses for God’s sovereign will

 Daniel 4:45 NASB “All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the host of heaven And {among} the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?’”

Proverbs 21:1 NASB “The king’s heart is {like} channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” Jesus Christ controls history.

Revelation 4:1 NASB “After these things I looked, and behold, a door {standing} open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like {the sound} of a trumpet speaking with me, said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.’” For God to declare what must happen prophetically He must be able to control it to bring it into existence. But once again, remember, He doesn’t override human volition in the process.

Ephesians 1:11 NASB “also we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.”

Proverbs 16:33 NASB “The lot is cast into the lap, But its every decision is from the LORD.”

Romans 9:19 NASB “You will say to me then, ‘Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?’” God’s sovereign will is secret, we do not know what it is. He has declared the end from the beginning and so we have to be careful not to lapse into some sort of hyper-Calvinistic fatalism and think that because God’s sovereign will is in control and He has declared history that somehow our decisions don’t matter. Because God has included within that complexity of all the events—He controls every detail from the most microscopic atom to the largest galaxy—flexibility based on human volition.

God’s will for our life

We might ask: What is God’s will for my life? Are we talking about God’s revealed will? That is clear, just go to the Scriptures and study the Word of God. Are we talking about God’s sovereign will? We don’t know that until it happens. Only after we make decisions and things happen do we know what was actually included in the decreed sovereign will of God.

We can only know the specifics of God’s revealed will, of God’s moral will. This includes all the precepts, mandates and prohibitions of the Scriptures. How do we know God’s will? Look to the Scriptures. Romans 2:18 NASB “and know {His} will and approve the things that are essential, being instructed out of the Law.” So one way the Jews in the Old Testament knew God’s will was that they went to the Law, God’s revealed Scriptures.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 NASB “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” So if we want to live inside that circle of God’s moral will, then to be living in God’s will means that you have an attitude of gratitude; you are thankful for everything: the good, the bad, the hard, the easy.

1 Thessalonians 4:3 NASB “For this is the will of God, your sanctification.” Part of God’s will is that you grow as a believer, that we go from spiritual infancy to spiritual adulthood.

2 Corinthians 6:14 NASB “Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has light with darkness?”

Specific will for every single believer? 

Often people will talk about this and say: “Well, you need to get into the centre of God’s will for your life; you need to know God’s perfect will for your life.” Some times you will hear illustrations. For example, from great heroes of the faith, great missionaries like Hudson Taylor who went to China and was responsible for opening up China to the gospel, that he had found God’s perfect will for his life; and because he lived in the center of God’s will God blessed him and he had this tremendous ministry. That seems to leave no room for the missionary who also responds to God’s call on his life to go out on the mission field and then spend his entire life witnessing to Hindu’s, living in a mud hut, travelling around always either by foot or by donkey, and after fifty years of ministry be able to say, yes indeed, he found God’s will for his life and led four people to the Lord. So God’s will includes room for failure as well. For example, Noah was right in the center of God’s will. He preached for 120 years and didn’t have any converts. Many people are taught that God has a specific will for you, and that is not the case.

One example that is used to support this is Jonah. God had a specific will for Jonah at the point of Jonah 1:1 in Jonah’s life. It wasn’t God’s will for Jonah to go to Nineveh a year earlier or two years earlier. Jonah was just going about his daily business learning and applying the Word, growing and maturing, then all of a sudden God had something specific. God may only have one specific thing for you to do in your life, the rest of it is just a general application of Scripture, growing to spiritual maturity, witnessing, being involved in a local church, being involved in ministry, giving, prayer, all the functions of your priesthood; that is God’s will for your life. When God has something specific He is going to make it clear.

Another example is Peter being sent to take the gospel to Cornelius. Notice that Peter had a vision, Acts 10:17. The Holy Spirit speaks, Acts 10:19, 20. So we see that God has a specific will for Peter at that time, and that was to go at that moment in time to Cornelius.

Another is Paul being sent as an apostle to the Gentiles, Acts 13:1, 2 NASB “Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was {there,} prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.’” The Holy Spirit gives direct information about His will for Barnabas and Paul.

What we have to notice from these examples is that at most there are only 15-20 examples in Acts where God gives specific directive information. Most of the time the decisions that are made are made by weighing and evaluating the issue. Example: Acts 15:36 NASB “After some days Paul said to Barnabas, ‘Let us return and visit the brethren in every city in which we proclaimed the word of the Lord, {and see} how they are.’” Look at how he made the decision: Let’s go visit, it seems good to us. It is a good idea to go back and check up on them. This is not because God has directed them. A decision is made just on weighing the data.

Acts 20:16 NASB “For Paul had decided to sail past Ephesus so that he would not have to spend time in Asia; for he was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.” Paul at this point is heading to Jerusalem when he should be heading to Rome, but he is making his decision based not on a direction from the Lord as to whether or not he should skip Ephesus.

Romans 1:10 NASB “always in my prayers making request, if perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.” At that point Paul didn’t know when he would get to Rome. [11] “For I long to see you so that I may impart some spiritual gift to you, that you may be established; [12] that is, that I may be encouraged together with you {while} among you, each of us by the other’s faith, both yours and mine. [13] I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles.” He keeps planning to go. He knows eventually it is God’s will because it is God’s will generally for him to take the gospel to the Gentiles, and Rome is the capital. It is not that he is dealing with something specific at this point, he is just working out his plan and this seems to be the best procedure.

1 Corinthians 16:4 NASB “and if it is fitting for me to go also, they will go with me. [5] But I will come to you after I go through Macedonia, for I am going through Macedonia; [6] and perhaps I will stay with you, or even spend the winter, so that you may send me on my way wherever I may go.” Notice his decision-making here and his planning. It is what seems best at the time. He is not acting as if God has a specific will for every place and every event in his life.

8)   The problem in all of these incidences of a specific will of God is that that specific will is known only through special revelation. Those of us who believe that revelation has ceased and that the canon is closed ought to have a major problem with the way most evangelicals teach the will of God where it becomes a very subjective thing based on emotion. In the examples we have seen for God’s specific will the individuals knew what God’s specific will was only because God directly spoke to them, a prophet directly spoke to them, they had a vision given them by God, God the Holy Spirit spoke to them, and in a couple of places in Acts miracles occurred indicating what God’s will was. That is how they knew what God’s will was if there was something specific.  Also all of the examples that are usually given for knowing that God has a specific plan for your life, or specific things for you to do, mostly derive from the book of Acts and the Old Testament. They don’t derive from New Testament epistolary literature. The conclusion from that is that although God may at times have a specific place, a specific location, in mind for you to live, to minister, specific things to do, if you are carrying out the general things in God’s plan for God, then even if you make the wrong decisions God is not dangling this thing out there and you have to guess what His will is and if you miss you are out of luck and are not going to have God’s blessing for the rest of your life because you missed God’s specific will for your life. That is not the way it happens at all. Even if you make the wrong decisions God’s plan is flexible enough to bring you back. The issue is if God wants you some place you are going to get there, as we see in Jonah. The same thing happened with Paul. God wants Paul to go to Rome; Paul wanted to go to Jerusalem, so Paul ended up going to Rome in chains. When God has a geographical will for your life He will bring it about. The issue is whether you are sharp enough to go of your own volition or go dragged kicking and screaming like Jonah.

9)   Knowing God’s will, therefore, is really based not on some emotional, liver quiver mystical experience, it is based on the grace learning spiral. We study God’s Word, the Holy Spirit makes it clear to us, it becomes GNOSIS and then EPIGNOSIS, God the Holy Spirit teaches us doctrine, and through the doctrine He guides and leads us, according to Galatians 5:18. It is always objective. Even in the Old Testament, when God spoke in private to a prophet it was always substantiated by external, verifiable data.

Colossians 1:19 NASB “For it was the {Father’s} good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him.”

Romans 12:2 NASB “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.” Renewing the mind is learning Bible doctrine, learning to think like Christ thinks; and by thinking that way, thinking according to doctrine we demonstrate in our lives that God’s will, God’s plan procedures and principles revealed in the Word of God, is good, acceptable and perfect. Our life becomes a visible testimony that God’s revealed will works, that doctrine works and solves problems.

Ephesians 5:17 NASB “So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. [6:6] not by way of eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart.”  That is, applying the word of God consistently in your life from the heart, i.e. the inner thinking part of the cognitive function of the soul.

Proverbs 3:5, 6 NASB “Trust in the LORD with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.” That means that if you are walking in obedience, learning God’s will, God is going to direct your paths. You are going to go where God wants you to go.

Psalm 32:8 NASB “I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you should go; I will counsel you with My eye upon you.” He teaches us the way we should go through His revelation, the Scriptures, through precepts, promises and procedures outlined in His Word.

In the first six verses of Judges chapter six outline the historical circumstances, that the Midianites who were a kind of roving band of Bedouins, would come through at harvest time and steal all of the grain and wheat and the Jews would be left with nothing and impoverished for another year. This was part of divine discipline on the nation for their idolatry and rebelliousness toward God.

In verse 7 we see God’s grace for their recovery. NASB “Now it came about when the sons of Israel cried to the LORD on account of Midian, that the LORD sent a prophet to the sons of Israel, and he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘It was I who brought you up from Egypt and brought you out from the house of slavery.” He reminds them of His faithfulness, bringing them up from Egypt. The basic message of the prophet here is to repent, that they need to turn back to God. Because they are going to do that God is going to provide the deliverer in the person of Gideon. 

Judges 6:11 NASB “Then the angel of the LORD came and sat under the oak that was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite as his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the wine press in order to save {it} from the Midianites. [12] The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, ‘The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.’” Special revelation. But Gideon is anything but a valiant warrior, hiding away in the winepress. [13] “Then Gideon said to him, ‘O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.’” So he is down there crying and whining about all the suffering in his life. [14] “The LORD looked at him and said, ‘Go in this your strength and deliver Israel from the hand of Midian. Have I not sent you?’” At this point Gideon begins to realize that he is not talking to somebody who just happened by that afternoon.

Judges 6:15 NASB “He said to Him, “O Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father’s house.” So the Lord again gives him specific directions. God has a specific will for Gideon’s life. [16] “But the LORD said to him, ‘Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man.’” God’s will for Gideon’s life is to go and defeat the Midianites. Gideon understood this very clearly. That teaches us that Gideon’s little episode with the fleece was not to find out what God’s will is for his life, it is to try to come up with an impossible scenario so he can rationalize not doing God’s will. Gideon is not seeking God’s will here, he is seeking to avoid God’s will because he doesn’t want to go out into the battle. [17] “So Gideon said to Him, “If now I have found favor in Your sight, then show me a sign that it is You who speak with me.” People try this all the time. They know God won’t fulfil it and they feel justified in disobeying. Gideon prepares a sacrifice here. [21] “Then the angel of the LORD put out the end of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened bread; and fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened bread. Then the angel of the LORD vanished from his sight.” At that point Gideon realizes fully who this is: “When Gideon saw that he was the angel of the LORD, he said, “Alas, O Lord GOD! For now I have seen the angel of the LORD face to face. [23] “The LORD said to him, ‘Peace to you, do not fear; you shall not die.’”

Another interesting little episode takes place: [36] “Then Gideon said to God, ‘If You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken.’” Think about this. God has already made it clear to Gideon that he is going to deliver Israel through Gideon. [37] “behold, I will put a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece only, and it is dry on all the ground, then I will know that You will deliver Israel through me, as You have spoken. [38] And it was so. When he arose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he drained the dew from the fleece, a bowl full of water. [39] Then Gideon said to God, “Do not let Your anger burn against me that I may speak once more; please let me make a test once more with the fleece, let it now be dry only on the fleece, and let there be dew on all the ground. [40] God did so that night; for it was dry only on the fleece, and dew was on all the ground.” So when we look at Gideon he is not seeking God’s will.

10)      Don’t try to test God to find out what His will is, go to His Word and be willing to do it.

11)      The geographical will of God is the term that relates to operating in a specific location. But even in the examples in Scripture where God does have a specific will for someone in a specific geographical location it is not necessarily for their whole life or it is not that God always has a specific geographical will for their life. It may involve a lifetime ministry in one location; it may be just for this point in time God has a specific geographical will, and once this is accomplished then it is time to move on and then there is no specific geographical will after that. Example: Jonah and Nineveh.

12)      It is the same thing with the operational will. The operational will of God includes both your spiritual gift and your natural talents and abilities.

13)      Often decisions in life are not related so much to the final decision as God is testing our decision making process. Are we going about it in a God-glorifying manner?

14)      Numbers 22:12-26 reveals these three categories of God’s will. God revealed His will to Balaam and told him not to go to Moab (v. 12). In v. 20, even though Balaam went to Moab God allowed him to—the permissive will of God. Then in vv. 25, 26 God overruled Balaam in his decision.

15)      The issue in decision making is utilizing the wisdom of Scripture, the EPIGNOSIS in the soul, weighing all the facts and making a decision.

Acts 15 where the problem is how the Jews are going to include Gentiles into the general new movement of Christianity. Acts 15:6 NASB “The apostles and the elders came together to look into this matter.” Notice it doesn’t say the apostles and the elders came together to seek God’s will in the matter. They have revelation so they have God’s will, now they have to decide how they are going to apply it. [7] “After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, ‘Brethren, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the word of the gospel and believe…’” [12] “All the people kept silent, and they were listening to Barnabas and Paul as they were relating what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. [13] After they had stopped speaking, James answered, saying, ‘Brethren, listen to me. [14] Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. [15] With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written.’” Then he quotes from the Old Testament. [19] “‘Therefore it is my judgment that we do not trouble those who are turning to God from among the Gentiles…” Notice how the decision is reached: “my judgment.” They have weighed the biblical data, looked at the principles, and now they have to make an application based on this reservoir of EPIGNOSIS in their souls. “…but that we write to them that they abstain from things contaminated by idols and from fornication and from what is strangled and from blood. [21] For Moses from ancient generations has in every city those who preach him, since he is read in the synagogues every Sabbath.”

Look at how they made their decision. [22] “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them to send to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas—Judas called Barsabbas, and Silas, leading men among the brethren…” In other words, it just seemed like a good thing to do. They had weighed the evidence and were going to use wisdom.

The issue is: Am I following what I know to be true about God’s Word? Am I learning the Word of God? Am I making Bible doctrine the highest priority in my life? Am I filled with the Spirit? Am I walking by means of the Spirit? Am I applying what I know consistently? How is my prayer life? These are the things that make up the will of God.

The problem in James is that that congregation was not responsive to God, they just wanted tom do whatever they wanted to do, and they took no thought for God’s moral will. Neither were they concerned about God’s sovereign plan for their life. They were operating on arrogance, and that is why: James 4:16 NASB “But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. [17] Therefore, to one who knows {the} right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” If you know what God’s revealed will is and you refuse to do it, that is sin.

Will of God

Will of God RD/1Peter/069

1. The revealed will of God. We know this by reading Scripture.

2. The sovereign will of God (decretive (Decreed) will of God). What God determines to do or to permit, apart from what is revealed in Scripture. We can only know God’s sovereign will after the fact.

3. The permissive will of God.What God allows to happen, which usually implies something not positive or good, such as sin, evil, rebellion, irresponsibility, corruption, etc.

Wisdom in the Bible

Wisdom in the Bible   RD/James/054

1)      The starting point for all wisdom is humility: awe and respect for God. Humility is basically authority orientation to God. God in His omniscience prepared a way of revelation so that complete revelation would be given so that the principles necessary to handle all of those difficulties would be available to mankind. God is also omnipotent. This means that God is able to do everything necessary to bring completion His will and plan. So between our understanding of the omniscience of God and the omnipotence of God we know that God was able to tell us everything we need to know to handle every situation. Nothing surprises God and He has revealed how to handle anything in our life. Then starting point, though, is authority orientation. Psalm 11:10 NASB “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; A good understanding have all those who do {His commandments;} His praise endures forever.” You are never going to get to wisdom un less you straighten up, get your arrogance under  control, say Yes Sir, to God and start committing yourself to the Word of God.

2)      The source of wisdom is God and His revelation. Proverbs 2:6 NASB “For the LORD gives wisdom; From His mouth {come} knowledge and understanding. [7] He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; {He is} a shield to those who walk in integrity.”

3)      The opposite of wisdom is foolishness. The Bible only sees two categories. We are either walking in wisdom or we are walking in foolishness—human or divine viewpoint application to life. Proverbs 1:7 NASB “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge; Fools despise wisdom and instruction.” Why do fools despise wisdom and instruction? No authority orientation, no humility; they think they have all the answers in life.

4)      Without wisdom there is no blessing in this life. Proverbs 3:13 NASB “How blessed is the man who finds wisdom And the man who gains understanding.” Wisdom is a source of happiness. Happiness comes by finding wisdom, advancing in the spiritual life and having EPIGNOSIS doctrine rule in the mind. Psalm 51:6 NASB “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, And in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom.”

5)      The acquisition of wisdom therefore is to be the believer’s highest priority. Nothing in life is more important because when you die and are absent from the body and face to face with the Lord the only thing that you are going to take with you into heaven is the doctrine that you have stored in your soul. Proverbs 8:11 NASB “For wisdom is better than jewels; And all desirable things cannot compare with her.” You cannot come up with anything in life that equates to the glory and the wonder of knowing Bible doctrine. Nothing surpasses that, according ti Proverbs. Proverbs 19:8 NASB “He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; He who keeps understanding will find good.”

6)      Wisdom is tantamount to EPIGNOSIS doctrine in the soul. It is not merely academic knowledge of the Bible but it is applicational doctrine which is learned under the filling ministry of God the Holy Spirit.

7)      Wisdom will eventually play itself out in the speech of the believer. Transformation comes from the inside out, so the more you learn if you are learning under the filling ministry of the Holy Spirit and walking by means of the Spirit then the result will be the fruit of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit will produce this in your life. Proverbs 10:31 NASB “The mouth of the righteous flows with wisdom, But the perverted tongue will be cut out.” Psalm 37:30 NASB “The mouth of the righteous utters wisdom, And his tongue speaks justice.”

Witnessing, The Point of

The point of all this is simply to emphasise that the issue in witnessing is not to detail the sins of the unbeliever, not make them the issue; the only issue is faith alone in Christ alone.

RD/John 091

1.       Everyone, every single human being, has enough information and they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God exists. Romans 1:19, 20.

2.       They all know they are sinners, according to Romans 2.

3.       The highest revelation in all of human history is Jesus Christ and the New Testament, and no more revelation is given in history. So in evangelism we are not looking for some new revelation, some new insight.

4.       We need to emphasise that sin is a violation of God’s character and integrity, and it is not a violation of social mores. (Society redefines sin every 20-30 years)

5.       Since sin is against the character of God and not man the ultimate sin is against Christ the eternal Son of God, the revealer of God, the Logos of God. The ultimate sin against Christ is to reject Him, the sin of unbelief.

Women in Ministry, The Role of

The Role of Women in Ministry   RD/Judges 019-20

Open your Bibles to Judges 4 and we continue our study on crisis in leadership; crisis and leadership in the book of Judges.  We need to be reminded that in Judges there are these cycles that go on.  There are six key cycles, central cycles in the book; they go from disobedience to divine discipline on the nation, to divine deliverance for the nation and then after a period of rest in the land they to through the cycle again, much like every believer does in his own personal life.  We go through various cycles and yet God is always gracious to us, we can never out sin the grace of God.  That does not mean we have a license to sin but it does mean that no matter what we do in life there is always a grace recovery procedure and that if we are still alive God still has a plan for our life.

Now in the overall structure of Judges there is a deterioration.  And you see the cycle, it starts with Othniel who is sort of the exemplary judge and he stands as a benchmark of integrity in leadership.  And with each successive judge there is a deterioration and decline because the nation is becoming more and more absorbed and more and more influenced by the pagan concepts surrounding them as they’ve compromised with the values of the Canaanites.  So we go through the process, we’ve gone through Othniel and Ehud and now we’re are the Deborah cycle, and the Deborah cycle sets us up for the first time in the book with a key critique by the prophet who wrote the book of Judges of failure of male leadership.  It’s a fascinating study as we go through this to see how…there’s a commentary on how paganism affects the role of men and women in society.  Sex role reversal or what we see in our society today is the concept that such roles are just interchangeable, that there’s no real difference between men and women, is one symptom of paganism.

The idea that I’m developing as we go through this and I’ll begin to systematize this more and more as we proceed through the book is that pagan thought, human viewpoint thought which is defined in James 3:13-15 by three key adjectives, we must keep this in mind, all human wisdom is defined as being earthly, natural and demonic.  And that is in contrast to the divine viewpoint expressed in Scripture.  Now those three terms are crucial to understand the nature of human viewpoint wisdom, no matter how good it sounds, no matter how wise it may be, no matter how much it may appear to work at any given time, human viewpoint thinking is classified by these three terms.  “Earthly” comes from the Greek word ge, which refers to the fact that it is of those who live on the earth and is often contrasted with heavenly.  Okay, the contrast is with heavenly thought versus earthly thought, the thinking of man versus the thinking of God.

The second word, translated “natural” which is a bad translation, is the Greek word psuchikos, and that is a form of the noun psuche for soul, it means soulish.  To understand that we have to realize that man was originally created trichotomous, that means he had three parts, he had a body, he had a soul and he had a human spirit.  The human spirit was that aspect of man’s soul that allowed him to have a relationship with God and to understand spiritual things.  Now at spiritual death when Adam sinned and disobeyed God in the Garden, God had said if you eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you will certainly die, instantly die and that death that occurred then was the loss of the human spirit, separation from God and the inability to have a relationship with God and to understand spiritual things, so that man in his immaterial part not, his post-fall experience, only has a soul.  It is only at regeneration that God the Holy Spirit creates and imparts to this individual a new human spirit so that he can have a relationship with God and understand spiritual things.  So the soul, the unbeliever is called psuchikos as opposed to the believer who is sometimes referred to as pneumatikos, meaning he now is a believer; pneumatikos also can refer to spiritual maturity, it depends on the context, but the human soul, the believer is psuchikos which means he just as a human soul, so human wisdom is soulish.  That means that it is limited in its content because it is unable to understand spiritual things, so it is diluted at its core; there are major flaws in all human wisdom because there are critical aspects of reality that are left out, and that is related to spiritual phenomena, so human wisdom has its source in man as opposed to God, it is soulish as opposed to spiritual, not incorporating within it spiritual truth, therefore it is flawed.

Then lastly it is called demonic and that is from the Greek word, daimonos, meaning related to demons and that tells us that all human viewpoint at its core is related to the same kind of thinking that characterized Satan in his fall, and this means it is ultimately characterized by two concepts, arrogance and antagonism towards God and God’s plan… arrogance and antagonism.  Now this is the core of all human viewpoint thinking, what I call all pagan thought.  Paganism is a technical term for all thought that is inconsistent with the Word of God.  It is not an insult, some people think it’s an insult; it is a technical term for non-Christian thinking.  It always has been and I’m not using it in any kind of an insulting manner, just as a term to contrast the two types of thinking.

So when a culture is influenced by paganism at its core, that means that at the core of its thought, the ideas that dominate the culture, at that core you have antagonism to God’s Word and human arrogance in all of its forms, self-absorption, self-indulgence, self-deception and self-justification.  When you have all of those aspects functioning as part of arrogance, then that core thought is going to manifest itself in various different ways in the culture.  And these are symptoms.  Now what happens so often is we see all kinds of symptoms that occur, everything from lawlessness to the other extreme which is tyranny, we see breakdown in the family structure, we see a breakdown in marriage, the high rate of divorce is just one symptom of that.  And not only that but one reason that some people suggest that the rate of divorce is beginning to decline is that people just aren’t getting married, they’re just living together and so when they breakup they don’t even get a divorce.  But if you factor in the number of people who are living together without benefit of marriage for a number of years and then they break up, if you factor that in as a divorce, then the statistics would be quite high indeed.

So you have various symptoms of paganism; it also expresses itself in the ideological structure of a society and that will work itself out in art forms, such as music, literature, architecture, every art from is going to be impacted by the expression of these autonomous ideas that are also antagonistic to the Word of God.  It’s going to affect also how we view ourselves as individuals and the role that men and women, males and females, operate on in society, how they view their roles in society.  That in turn is going to come back and impact the view of marriage and the view of family.

So paganism therefore works itself out in any given culture in perhaps many different ways.  You might have it express itself in one culture as an extreme tyrannical patriarchy, where the males are ruling excessively tyrannically over women and that’s wrong.  It may be expressed on the other extreme in terms of the matriarchy, where there is a rejection of male authority and male leader­ship and the men are operating in an extremely passive manner and leadership in the home and leadership in the society is dominated by women.  There has never been a successful matriarchy in all of human history; in fact I think that matriarchy probably marks more the more primitive expressions of paganism rather than more sophisticated forms of paganism.  And this is the situation that we see happening in the book of Judges.  One of the things that we’ll see as we go through this is that part of the symptoms, as you see this role reversal take place, the men will exercise leadership in a more negative light; women have to step to the plate so you see a masculinization of women, a feminization of men and another symptom that goes along with this as it occurs is that there is less and less respect for women and there is a rise of an abusive attitude toward women.  Now I find that interesting.

We’ll work the implications of that out as we go through this study and get to some more detailed passages on that but it’s interesting that one of the things that we note in our modern culture is that as there has been a rise of the changing views of the roles of men and women in society and in marriage since the rise of modern feminism in the early 60s, there has also been a rise or increase in abuse.  Now what you’ll hear from the liberal is that well, there’s always been abuse.  I didn’t say there never has been abuse, but there never has been the kind of abuse and the kind of break­downs in marriage that we have today in the past.  There was always some of that because no society is ever perfect, people have a sin nature and there’s always been an element of pagan thought in any society; there’s always a large element of that.  But it doesn’t mark the culture.  What we see today with the rise of abuse, sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, is that this is something that is characterizing our culture as a whole across the board, and it did not characterize the culture a hundred years ago.  There may have been many instances of that kind of abuse but it wasn’t characteristic of the culture as a whole, which is what I am saying.

We started our study of this because this is so crucial, to understand this as it impacts the church and the role of ministry in the church, and this has been a hot issue in Christianity and in ecclesiology for the last thirty years.  And the pressure has come in many ways from groups, politically active groups in our society putting pressure on the government and then the government putting pressure on businesses and on schools and on seminaries.  When I was applying to Dallas Seminary in 1974 this was one of the issues we talked about.  I was involved with a pastor then who had two or three men who were planning to go to seminary and one of the issues was to work through your position on the role of women because Dallas was changing.  Dallas Seminary was originally founded to train men for the pastoral ministry.  And they opened up a secondary degree program in the mid-70s called just a Master of Arts which was different fro the Master of Theology.  A lot of people don’t understand that what’s happened today; people go to Dallas and they think they get a Dallas grad who has a Master of Arts and Biblical Studies and they don’t understand that that’s a cheap imitation, in my opinion, of a ThM, it’s only a two year program and no languages are required.  And they don’t understand the distinction so they get something less than what Dallas used to produce in the 50s and 60s.  But one of the reasons they opened up a MABS program was because of this cultural pressure, because up until, I think 1973 or 74 when they instituted this there were no women at Dallas Seminary because it was designed to train men for the pastoral ministry.  But people were beginning to have trouble getting GI bill funding for their tuition because the government was looking at the school and saying hmmm, there are no women there, that violates our governmental policy for restructuring society so you have to start either including women in the student body or we won’t let any government funding come your way.  Since money talks, there was a response to that and there were changes that took place and by 1981 Dallas changed their purpose statement; no longer do they exist as a seminary to train men for the pastoral ministry, they changed their purpose statement to train men and women for Christian leadership.

Now I don’t necessarily have any problem with that per se but I do have a problem with the fact that there needs to place that trains men for the pastoral ministry.  So what you see there is something that is very similar to, in my opinion, what happened in Israel.  Israel wanted to have a king like everybody else.  Well, Dallas wanted to be a seminary like everybody else and from that point on I would mark it as in decline.  And they began to add degree programs and once they changed their purpose statement there was no longer a legitimate reason to exclude women from the ThM program and from the ThD program.  And then eventually they even had women on the faculty who taught in those programs.  So you see it’s a gradual, gradual pressure.

When I was speaking at a church in Wilmington, Ohio, at a black church there, we were talking about how much pressure there is among many of the black Baptist Churches in this area and the association of Baptist Churches in Columbus, Ohio, approximately 54 churches were in this association and in the last few years there has been a lot of pressure to put women in the pulpit and so only 6 of those 54 churches still have men in the pulpit.  That’s the kind of shift that is taking place; it’s a feminization of the church, a feminization from the resulting feminization of our society.  The Southern Baptist Convention this last year adopted a new Faith in Message, which has created all kinds of controversy and in that new Faith in Message that they adopted they made a position that women should not be in the pulpit ministry, in a pastoral ministry.  And so that’s created a lot of stir recently.  There was a report that the Texas division of the convention decided to withhold all of their finances from the Southern Baptist Convention as a whole because they didn’t agree with that position.  Then former President Carter decided to remove himself from association with the Southern Baptist Convention because they wouldn’t allow women in the pulpit.  And then the Georgia Baptist Convention voted to affirm the Baptist Faith in Message so they’re going to stick with the Southern Baptist Convention.

So it’s creating a tremendous controversy in our society, not to mention the fact that it impacts not only churches and pulpits but it impacts everybody’s view.  I would gather than anybody here over 40 has seen some of their views in this area change, sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse, change in regard to this.  So we have to look at what the Bible says about the role of women in terms of spiritual leadership.  And that’s why I started off talking about the general doctrine of leadership the last several weeks, understanding that this is related to, I think it’s a corollary to the first divine institution, which is human responsibility.  And human responsibility tells us that everybody holds a certain duty, office or trust that has been delegated by God and is therefore answerable and accountable for decisions and actions in relationship to that duty, office or trust so that men were given in terms of the created order a position of leadership and spiritual responsibility.

The woman was created to assist the man.  That does not make her less than the man.  That was unfortunately a position that was taken for many years, many centuries as a matter of fact, that somehow women were somehow in their essence, what is called ontology, were somehow ontologically less than men.  But that’s not what the text says.  In Genesis 1:26-28 it says God created them in His image, male and female, He created them, so that both the man and the woman, both the male and the female are equally created in the image of God.  So in terms of who they are as individuals, they are ontologically and metaphysically equal.  There is nothing that makes a man inherently superior to a woman, or a woman inherently superior to a man.  They are created with different roles and because of that you can demonstrate that the male soul was created differently from the female soul.

But then we come to Genesis 3 and we discover that because of sin that was marred, and God said that now as a result of sin the relationship between men and women would suffer damage, just as every other relationship in creation suffered damage, so that it says the woman’s pain would now be multiplied in childbirth, and her desire, it says in Genesis 3:15, would be for the man.  And the word there for “desire” is the Hebrew word teshuwqah, which indicates a desire to control and to dominate.  And then it turns around and says but the man will want to rule the woman.  So right there you have the beginning of the family feud and the war of the sexes.

What changes that and the only thing that can change that is regeneration and spiritual growth.  And then you come to passages in Ephesians 5 which will begin to restore those relationships in Christ.  But nevertheless, there are role distinctions and that does not mean that one is less significant than the other.  You look at a football game, you’ve got a quarterback and you’ve got a running back and one is not inherently better than the other, but there are roles; the quarterback calls the plays or maybe the coach calls the plays from the sideline but everybody has a role, everybody has a position that they operate in, everybody has a position of leadership and respon­sibility and authority is related to those concepts of leadership and rresponsibility and leadership and authority are related to your sphere of responsibility.  And in a family the husband is given the role of responsibility and spiritual leadership in the home.

Now when you think about it, the church, the meeting of the local congregation is nothing more than an aggregate of families.  This is just a logical argument, we’ll get into some Scripture in a minute; if women were to be in a position of following in the home spiritually, not in the role of spiritual leadership, and in the church when all the families get together the woman is now in a position of spiritual leadership there would be a major conflict between what goes on in the home and what goes on in church.  So the church is an extension, in one sense, of the family because it is an aggregate of families.  So that is why the leadership principle in the home continues to the church and you see a breakdown in leadership in the home, male leadership in the home, you see a corollary in the church and that’s exactly what we’re seeing happen.  These are all symptoms of an underlying paganism which is a rejection, number one, it’s arrogance, man is defining his roles on his own terms so it’s arrogance and it’s antagonistic to God.  How can God say that men are superior to women?  It doesn’t mean that there aren’t women that can out teach men, I’ve certainly heard some women who know a whole lot more than men do and they might be more articulate and they might be able to communicate some things a lot better than men but that’s not the issue; that’s a pragmatic argument.  We always have to argue from what the Scripture says.  So we get into a look at what goes on in these passages.

In Judges 4:1ff we’ll see the significance of Deborah.  “And the sons of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, after Ehud died.  [2] And the LORD sold them into the hand of Jabin, king of Canaan, who reigned in Hazor, and the commander of his army was Sisera, who lived in Harosheth-hagoyim.  [3] And the sons of Israel cried unto the LORD,” this is their turning to the Lord for succor from their domination by the Canaanites, “for He had nine hundred iron chariots; and he oppressed the sons of Israel severely for twenty years.  [4] Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, was judging Israel at that time.”

Now as I have said, the concept of a judge is not what we think of as a judge.  In fact, “judge” probably isn’t the best word to describe, to translate the Hebrew word shaphat, it has the idea of deliverance, sometimes it’s a military deliverer, sometimes it’s a military conqueror, it sort of wraps up several functions.  There is an adjudication function here where he is making decisions related to problems, civil problems, problems in the society, but there’s also a sense in which he is… most of them are used by God to go out and attack a foreign power that has oppressed or dominated the nation.  But you don’t see Deborah functioning in that way; she is not functioning in that deliverer sense.  She is simply functioning as someone who is adjudicating decisions in the nation.

Judges 4:5, “She used to sit under the palm tree of Deborah between Ramah and Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim; and the sons of Israel came up to her for judgment.”  This is a fulfillment of the Deuteronomy 17:8 passage which says, “If any case is too difficult for you to decide, between one kind of homicide or another, between one kind of lawsuit or another, between one kind of assault or another, being cases of disputes in your courts, then you shall arise and go up to the place which the LORD your God chooses.”  So God clearly raised up Deborah as a judge in this fashion to adjudicate decisions.  There is no hint that there is anything inherently wrong with Deborah that she’s operating in some sort of illegitimate manner at all.  But nevertheless, what we have to define is what her role is; her role is not in handling Scripture.  Her role is not in the communication of Scripture; her role is in adjudicating decisions based on the Law.

Now there are several questions we need to address in this whole issue; we began with this last time.  First, what exactly is the role in nature of a prophet because we see that she was a prophetess?  What exactly is the role and nature of a prophet?  The second question, what is the authority of the prophet?  Third, how many women are there in Scripture who are prophetesses?  What’s the argument there?  Fourth, is this a normative role or an unusual role?  Fifth, is there something negative going on here about Deborah taking the role of a judge?  Is there something negative and if so what sense is there something negative going on here.  And then finally what is the implication of this for the role of women in ministry for the Church Age, because this is one of those passages that if you ever get in a discussion with someone on this subject, and I know from talking to many of you that you have run into this problem in one way or another, that this is always one of those examples that people go to—well what about Deborah?  Well what about the daughters of Philip in Acts, they were prophetesses, why doesn’t that justify us in having woman pastors?  So that’s why we have to look at this important issue and take it apart Scripturally.

The first question is: what exactly is the role and nature of the prophet.  First of all you have to distinguish between the office of prophet and the gift of prophecy.  You don’t have any women functioning in the office of prophet because the office of prophet would entail a certain level of authority that went with the office.  What you have in the Old Testament is four women who are said to have the gift of prophecy.  Now the gift of prophecy is that God has given them the ability and God reveals to them certain things and then they express that.  It is a revelatory gift.  As such, the gift of prophecy receives revelation from God and then expresses that verbatim to people.  The difference between a prophet and a priest is that the prophet stands between God and man; and God reveals certain things to the prophet and then the prophet communicates that to man.  A priest operates as an intermediary between man and God.  So the priest is bringing man before God; the prophet is bringing the Word of God to man.  There are no examples in the Scripture of a female functioning in the role of priest.

Now in the gift of prophecy, not in the office of prophet, but in the gift of prophecy, prophecy does not entail, according to an excellent article by Dr. Hohner on prophecy, he states: “Prophecy is neither skill nor aptitude nor talent.”  Now that’s important because that’s going to relate somewhat to the role of a pastor later on.  “It is the actual speaking forth of words given by the Spirit in a particular situation and ceases when the words cease, so that the authority in a prophetic utterance is in God and His Word.  It is not in the person delivering the Word, so that in the function of the gift of prophecy the prophet functions merely as a mouth piece or a speaker.”  An example we might use is like this summer when I was teaching in Kazakhstan, and I would teach through an interpreter, and I would state something and then the interpreter would put it into the language of the people, into Russian or into Kazakh.  The authority was not in her, she was simply restating what I said, so she did not possess any authority at all, she was simply the mouthpiece through which I taught.  The authority was completely in me and in my teaching.  So that helps us to distinguish the authority position of the gift of prophecy.  So the role of prophet was to reveal God’s will to man, specifically in terms of what God had revealed to the individual prophet.

The second question is: what is the authority of the prophet?  The authority of the person with the gift of prophecy is not in an office, I’m not talking about the person that has the office of prophet; the authority resides in the words themselves, that they come from God and it ceases once the prophecy ceases, once the revelation ceases.  The authority resides in the message, not in the person giving the message, and that is distinct from a teacher, because the teaching involves the explanation, exposition, interpretation of the Word of God.  And there is authority inherent in teaching that is not in the gift of prophecy.  So you don’t have any women functioning an office of prophet, they only function with the gift of prophecy and that is distinct from teaching in that it does not entail an authoritative position.

That brings us to the third question which is: how many women are there in Scripture who are prophetesses.  The first one that is mentioned is Miriam, the sister of Moses and Aaron, in Exodus 15:20 it states, “And Miriam, the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took the timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dancing.”  So that’s all it states, is that she was a prophetess, it doesn’t really give us more information than that.

The second woman mentioned as a prophetess is Deborah in Judges 4, the passages we’re studying.

The third is mentioned in 2 Kings 22:14, a woman by the name of Huldah, “So Hilkiah, the priest, and Ahikam, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Asaiah, went unto Huldah, the prophetess, the wife of Shallum, the son of Tikvah, the son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe (now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter) and they spoke to her.”  So they were going to her for divine revelation, but she is not in a position of authority.

The fourth is an interesting passage in Nehemiah 6:14 where you have reference to Noadiah, the prophetess.  This is interesting because the rabbis never listed her among the prophetesses of the Old Testament, even though the Septuagint lists her as a prophet she’s ignored by the rabbis, so there’s some textual or historical problem with this, but she is listed as a prophetess but we don’t know anything more than that.  [“My God, think thou upon Tobiah and Sanballat according to these their works, and on the prophetess, Noadiah, and the rest of the prophets, who would have put me in fear.”]

When we come to the New Testament, in Luke 2:36, we have mention of Anna, the prophetess.  This happens at the time that Jesus is presented by His parents at the temple on His eighth day according to the Law.  “And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher; she was advanced I years, having lived with an husband seven years after her marriage,” and so she is waiting there at the temple expecting the Messiah, she’s been there for years, and she announces when Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus, when they bring the baby in she announces that this is the Messiah.  This is not a position of authority; she is simply expressing the revelation of God.

And then the other major example of this in the New Testament is with the daughters of Philip in Acts 21:7-10, and it simply mentions that the daughters of Philip were prophetesses.

Now two important observations must be kept in mind.  First of all, none of these are teaching, explaining, expositing the Word of God.  They are merely relating the Word of God; they are telling people what God has told them to articulate.  Second, none of them is in a position of authority in relation to spiritual matters.  They are not in a position of authority.  The authority does not reside in them but in their words.

That brings us to the fourth question, which is: is this a normative role or an unusual role?  When we look at the fact and compare how many men served as prophets versus the number of women that are mentioned as prophetesses, it clearly indicates that this is not a normative position.  I’m not saying that it…that doesn’t mean it’s wrong, obviously God gave them the gift, but it was sort of more in an unusual set of circumstances rather than being the normal course of action.

This brings us to the next question, which is a crucial one and that is: is there something negative about Deborah taking the role of a judge?  And the answer to that is yes and no.  No in the sense that it’s not wrong for Deborah; God has put her in this position, God has given here the gift of prophetess, but it’s like a back-handed compliment.  She’s in that position because there’s a vacancy, an absence of male leadership.  We looked the fact that at the end of Judges 3 there’s this mention of Shamgar, and that’s so important, and it just kind of hangs there and not much is said about Shamgar, but what we saw there was that in order for God to deliver and protect Israel from this threat on their flank from the Philistines, that God brought in this Egyptian mercenary named Shamgar, he’s not even a believer, he’s not an Israelite, so God has to use an unbeliever in order to protect the Jews because there’s no Jew who’s willing to stand in the gap; there’s such an absence of leadership in the nation.  We see that more and more throughout the entire book of Judges.

We come to Gideon in the next episode, we’re going to look at Gideon and Gideon just hides out in the winepress every time there’s a military threat from the Midianites and the Amalekites.  I mean, he’s just a cowering coward.  And there’s just no real strong leadership in the land.  And we look at some of the things that are done by others, like Jephthah and Samson, and we just see that there is just this terrible problem with the leadership; they are in carnality, they don’t really trust the Lord fully, they have so compromised their thinking with paganism, and so we see this real shift taking place here between Judges 3 and Judges 4 that is setting us up for understanding the problems in the leadership in the land.  So it’s a backhanded compliment, God raises up Deborah because the men are too weak and wimpy spiritually to stand in the gap.  And so what we see here is women having to take over the man’s role, and that’s what typically happens in a pagan society.  As men abdicate their role of spiritual leadership women have to stand I the gap in order to provide some form of spiritual leadership in the home, otherwise there wouldn’t be any.

Now that doesn’t make it right, that’s simply an analysis of what happens, but it is an indictment on the male leaders in the society and on husbands and fathers, and shows that the people are too impacted by the pagan way of thinking, and men fall way.  So many times I’ve heard this from people: religion, that’s for women, that’s not for men so we let the wife take care of that.  That just shows the real flaws in many families, that men cannot exercise leadership and when they try to it’s more like tyranny and it’s not leadership.  And that goes back to the war of the sexes, back in Genesis 3, that apart from regeneration and spiritual maturity men are going to want to act like tyrants but women are going to want to do the same thing so there’s a constant war for who’s going to wear the pants in the family.

So we look at this and we see that there is something negative about this; it’s not a condemnation or a critique or anything negative about Deborah, it is a comment, a negative comment about the culture, and this is also seen in Isaiah 3:10-12.  There we see the same kind of indictment against the nation.  And Isaiah is told to “Say to the righteous, that it will go well with them, for they will eat the fruit of their actions.  [11] Woe to the wicked!  It will go badly with them; for what he deserves will be done to him.  [12] Oh my people,” says the Lord, “their oppressors and children, and women rule over them.  O my people, those who guide you lead you astray, and confuse the direction of your paths.”  The lack of male leadership and the need for women to stand in the gap is a shameful thing in Scripture.  This is a shameful thing and this is an indictment of the role of the men that they have failed to stand in the gap as spiritual leaders.

Let’s turn to some important New Testament passages.  1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul writes, “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ,” so right there he’s establishing an authority leadership position.  He is a leader and he’s setting an example by his life and he’s saying just as I recognize that I am under the authority of Christ and am following His example, in that I follow His example you follow my example.  Now that’s an important distinction to make.  Don’t just follow the example of some pastor or some spiritual leader because they are spiritual, they may do some things wrong, but in that they are following Christ, in that pattern we are to imitate them, but not necessarily in everything.  Remember, every spiritual leader, every pastor, every theologian, every major figure in church history has also been flawed because we all have sin natures so we can’t set up any pastors or any spiritual leaders as the ultimate example because they’re all going to fail at some point and once we make them some sort of a standard for spirituality, as soon as they make a mistake then too many people react to that and either try to destroy the person they set up in that position or they decide well, Christianity isn’t worth anything because dear old so and so that I trusted for so many years fell apart and committed…[tape turns]

…offends me and now I’m going to throw away Christian.  So we never put our hope in man.  But Paul is just simply saying that he is an imitator of Christ, we are to imitate him.  And then he is going to use that as a framework for understanding the role of men and women in church life and ministry.

1 Corinthians 11:2, he says, “Now I praise you, because you remember in me in everything, and hold firmly to the traditions just as I delivered them to you.”  Now “tradition” for some people is a bad word.  Tradition can be good; tradition can be bad.  The Pharisaical tradition was bad; it was based on a false concept, but a tradition that is based on Biblical truth and is sound and is in accordance with doctrine is a good tradition.  So tradition in and of itself is not wrong.  It is whether the tradition is biblically correct or not.  So Paul has passed on the correct Biblical traditions grounded in creation.

1 Corinthians 11:3, “But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a women, and God is the head of Christ.”  Now this is an interesting statement and in the Greek it is not in the same order that it is in the English.  In the Greek it reads like this: “But I want you to know that of every man,” notice, that’s the first thing, he doesn’t start with the authority and then go to the one under the authority, that’s what we would expect and that’s the way it is translated, but that’s not how he states it.  He starts with the person under authority first, he says “of every man Christ is the head.”  So the emphasis is on the person who is a subordinate role, in a submissive role, “of every man,” and here it’s talking about every male.

It is not the word anthropos in the Greek which can be used generically of every human being; just like in English we talk about all mankind, not this silly human kind that the multi-cultural politically correct people are foisting on everybody today, but because every language has always been that way and that’s because every language ultimately…what’s inherent in this is a recognition of the created male authority going back to Genesis 1. That’s why in almost all…most languages that I know about talk about mankind, use the word for “men” to describe the entire human race because man is the Adam.  It was Adam who was the head; it was Adam’s decision as we see in 1 Timothy 2, not the woman’s decision, that caused the fall.  So there is nothing wrong with that and all of these attempts to go to some kind of gender non-specific language is really heresy and is just another example of man’s rebellion against the created order.

But I want you to understand Christ is the head of every man.  So every male is under the authority of Jesus Christ.  That’s what he is starting with.  Then the next clause reads: “and the man is the head of the woman,” in the Greek it’s reversed, it’s “the head of a woman is the man.”  And then the third line is “and the head of Christ is God.”  I want you to notice that in the first clause the focus is on Christ, and in the second clause the focus is on Christ; that’s the way it’s worded in the Greek.  So this is something of a chiasm.  Now we have discussed that form, that style of writing before.  Chiasm is based on the Greek letter Chi, and what you do is when you’re writing something you will list two or three things in an order like this, so it forms one side of a Chi, that’s where they get the term chiasm.  And a chiastic structure is common in many passages in Scripture.  In fact, I may or may not take the time to do this but the entire outline of the book of Judges is based on a chiasm, and in a chiastic structure the focal point, it’s like a frame, a frame is designed to draw your attention to the center of the picture, to what it is framing.  The frame should never detract from the picture and it’s designed to draw your attention…when you look at a picture the frame should help draw all of your focus to the focal point of the picture, whatever the picture is, and that’s how a chiastic structure is.  Now that’s not saying that the other points aren’t important but they’re all designed to draw the attention to what’s in the center point.

The book of Judges is based on a chiasm and the center point is the judgeship of Gideon because Gideon is a major turning point to the bad for the history of Israel during the period of the Judges.  But here you have a chiasm where a focal point in the first part is Christ and the last part is Christ and in the middle the emphasis is on the male-female relationship and specifically it is a husband-wife concept.  The reason I say that is because in the opening section of verse 3 it says that of “every man Christ is the head,” and there it is andros in the Greek, which is the term for male.  It is also the term for husband.  Now context has to indicate which it is, and here it says that Christ is the head of every male; “of every male Christ is the head,” and then it says, “and the male is the head of a female.”  It is andros and gune, emphasizing male and female, but when you have it that context then it’s husband-wife.  Those two terms can either be male or they can emphasize the female but when you put them together in the same context it’s usually husband and wife.  So what Paul is doing in his argument here is he’s laying down a fundamental principle in verse 3 and the application will come from that principle.  And he says, “of every male Christ is the head, and of a woman,” “of a wife the man is the head, and of Christ God is the head.”

Now the other key word that is listed here is a word translated “head,” which is the Greek word, kephale, there’s no soft “c” in Greek, and when this comes over into English you have the word cephalic, which refers to the head, and so in some passages it refers to the physical head but in passages where it is used metaphorically it always…in Greek it always, in this kind of a context always refers to an authority position.  Now the feminists, the so-called evangelical feminists, which is an oxymoron, the evangelical feminists come along and they have tried to argue that kephale really means origin or source, like in English we might talk about the head of a river, so that just means origin or source and then they would translate this that Christ is the source of every male and the male is the source of every female and that means that the woman was taken out of the side of Adam, and God is the source of Christ.  That’s just false.

In fact, what really impressed this meaning on me was a debate that a friend of mine, Wayne House, had, Wayne is quite a well-educated individual, he is a professor of theology, he also has a law degree, he was a professor at Dallas when I was working on my doctorate there, I had some courses with him, and Wayne has debated all of the major evangelical feminists; he’s gone into the lion’s den at their universities and debated them and he was debating one of the major scholars on the evangelical feminist side at her university in Washington State I believe, and in front of the whole student body, and she made the argument that kephale referred to origin or source.  Wayne reached down in his brief case and at that time computers were just coming into their own in terms of Bible study, and he pulls out a ream of paper about two inches thick and said I have here a list of every use of kephale in Greek literature, Classic Greek and Koine Greek, would you please give me one example where kephale is used of source anywhere in all this literature.  She couldn’t even read Greek.  It took over a year for the authorities of that school to somehow restore their liberal slant to the student body.

The evidence, none of the evidence is in the evangelical feminist camp; all of the syntactical and lexical evidence is against their position, but it’s not socially acceptable.  It doesn’t fit the social agenda of the liberal left and the feminists to go with this kind of authority hierarchal position.  Nevertheless, that is exactly what the Word of God says and the only way you can avoid it is to ignore the evidence and to misconstrue it.  So what we have here is a clear statement that just as Christ is the authority over every male, and the husband is the authority over the wife, God is the authority over Christ.  And it’s not just authority, don’t hear tyranny, don’t hear the autocratic boss.  Remember the flip side of authority is leadership.  If you are in an authority position you are in a leadership position and leadership is related to a goal and a role.  And remember the man’s role is the leader in spiritual authority so his authority is related to spiritual leadership in the home.

Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 11:4, “Every man who has something on his head while praying or prophesying disgraces his head.  [5] But every woman who has her head uncovered while praying or prophesying disgraces her head, for she is one in the same with her whose head is shaved.”  Now being shaved was a sign of dishonor and that you weren’t under authority, and usually the prostitutes would shave their head and so it was a sign of extreme shame in that culture.  And what Paul is saying here…the only thing I want to emphasize here is that he accepts as legitimate that men and women both can pray and prophesy in church.  Now since the gift of prophecy is no longer in effect that’s out.  But it does, at least, allow for the fact that praying by a woman in church was legitimate because it’s not an authority position; it’s not an explanation of Scripture.  I’ve heard some men and some women try to preach when they pray and that’s going beyond the bounds of prayer, if you understand it.  But the point is that Paul does accept that as a legitimate function because it’s not authoritative.

Then he goes on to talk about the issue of physical recognition of authority.  1 Corinthians 11:6, “If a woman does not cover her head,” that goes back to the previous verse that if a man prays he should not cover his head because it was a sign of his submission to his authority, and so he would take off his head recognizing his authority position but every woman would pray with her head covered and that was a cultural thing; I just want to skip on past that and go to another passage.

1 Corinthians 14:34, Paul says, “Let the women keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak,” and here the word is laleo, which has the idea of teaching in the context, “women are to keep silent in the churches; for they are not permitted to speak.”  No, what happens is…first of all, this passage has a textual problem and the liberals come along and say well, it wasn’t really in the original and I’ve heard some other scholars try to argue there.  There are a large group of manuscripts that do not have verses 34-35 in this location, but they’re there, they’re just at the end of the chapter and not there.  But they also happen to all relate geographically to the western church around Italy and they probably are copies of the same original.  But the fact is that it’s not that the verses are missing, it’s just that they’re not in the same place.  There is no significant manuscript that I’m aware of that omits these verses at all.  They are always there, there’s just a problem with where they put them.  But most of the oldest manuscripts, the manuscripts that are considered the better manuscripts all have these verses here and those manuscripts go back to the early third century AD.

So it says, “Let the women keep silent in the churches,” now obviously they’re allowed to pray and prophesy, so Paul is not addressing that, he’s talking about teaching and also in this context he’s talking about using the gift of tongues.  So they were forbidden to speak in tongues, which indicates that women would not have then been given the gift of tongues, and this is interesting because in many charismatic churches it’s primarily the women who were speaking in tongues.  The women are to “keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak, but let them subject themselves also, as the law says, [35] And if they desire to learn anything,” that is if they have a point of confusion or are distracted on doctrine then they’re not to interrupt in the congregation meeting to ask a question, they’re to wait until they go home and ask their husbands.  See, that puts the husband in the spiritual leadership position and does not put him in a spiritual leadership position in conflict with the pastor.  And that happens in many situations because the man has bailed out in terms of his authority position, that the only place that a woman can get spiritual leadership is from the pastor and all of a sudden she goes home and says, well pastor said so and so and pastor said this and she makes her husband look like an idiot and she shows disrespect for him.  And here the woman is to keep silent and she’s to go home and ask the husband.  That just puts him in a position of carrying out his divinely ordained role of spiritual leadership.

Let’s go to one last passage, 1 Timothy 2:8-15, this is the clearest statement in the New Testament and I want you to note from both the 1 Corinthians 11 passage and from this passage that Paul is not arguing that women be silent because that’s the way we do things in our culture.  He’s not arguing from that, he is arguing always from the order of creation, and what he is saying is that a woman’s position in the church, and the fact that she is “in Christ” and we all are equal in Christ, you know in the Old Testament law women could not be priests, they could not go into the inner part of the temple, and there was a distinction made in the Law between men and women and slaves and free people and if you were a man you had certain privileges and prerogatives in the worship of God that did not extend to women or to slaves.   And what happens in the church, Galatians 3:24-25 says that there is no longer slave or free, male or female, because all are one in Christ.  Now the evangelical feminist comes along and says what that’s really saying is that there are no distinctions any more between men and women.  That’s patently false; I mean there were still distinctions between the slave and free.  Paul clearly recognized that, he didn’t tell Onesimus, when he ran away from Philemon, that you’re now free because we’re all one in Christ so you’re not a slave any more.  He sent a letter back to Philemon and he said because Onesimus has now become a believer I’m going to encourage you to set him free.  He doesn’t argue that oh well, now that we’re all one in Christ he’s automatically free.  So there were still social distinctions.  Just because you’re “in Christ” it doesn’t wipe that out and yet that’s the argument that is always floated on this and it’s just inherently illogical.

Starting in 1 Timothy 2:11, “Let a woman quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness,” and what this is focusing on is that there should be an attitude of respect for authority in the instruction of Scripture and that the woman is not to interrupt or to impose her opinions in the congregation meeting.  [12] But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.”  Now the interesting thing there is the order of the sentence in the Greek.  The order tells us what Paul’s emphasis is.  The first word is to teach, he says “to teach I do not allow a woman, or to have authority,” and by separating those two infinitives, to teach and to have authority by his prohibition is to draw attention to what he is prohibiting.  And he puts teaching at the priority, he is prohibiting a woman from teaching or exercising authority and the two go together.  And he is not saying, as I heard one woman, when I was at Dallas I had the…I don’t know if it was a privilege or not, Tommy and I were sitting together listening to a woman who has written a number of books in Christianity, she was the first woman allowed to teach in chapel at Dallas Seminary, she had the gall to misquote this Scripture and stand up there and say well, Scripture says that a woman is not to teach and have authority over men so I am teaching you but not with authority because the authority resides in the faculty behind me.  Well, the Scripture doesn’t say “teach and have authority,” as if you could teach without authority.  It says to teach or have authority, either one, both are forbidden, this is why you can’t have women even teaching any kind of a Sunday School class, teaching Scripture to adult men.  It’s great for women to be teaching kids but once they get to, I think, adolescence then it ought to be male teachers.

“I do not allow a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet, [13] For it was Adam who was first created, then Eve.  [14] And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman, who being quite deceived, fell into transgression.”  So his argument is from the order of creation, that the man was created first, priority, his position is the leader, not the woman.   And the woman was designed to be the assistant to the man but not to be the leader.  So the Scripture is clear that in terms of ministry, there are many ministries open and available to women but the teaching, the authoritative teaching of the Word of God and teaching the Word of God is inherently authoritative, I want to make sure you understand that, you can never teach the Word of God without authority.  The authoritative teaching of the Word of God to men is forbidden to women.

Some people say well women can teach women’s Bible studies and they always go to the passage in Titus 2 which says that the older women are to teach the younger women.  Did you ever notice what that says?  We don’t have time to go there but did you ever notice; it says the older women are to teach the younger women doctrine?  Is that what it says?  That’s not what it says, it says older women are to teach the younger women to love their husbands, love their children, be hard workers at home.  It doesn’t say anything about teaching the Bible.  It says they’re to teach them how to function in their role as wives but it doesn’t say anything about older women teaching younger women the Bible.  So I don’t think there’s a place for women, that the Scripture allows women to teach the Scriptures authoritatively in any environment, period.  And that’s not what Deborah was doing.  Deborah was functioning as a judge and she was functioning as a mouthpiece for God in a situation where male leadership had abdicated authority but she was not in a position, she never exercises the authoritative explanation of the Word of God.

World System, The Three Evils of the

The Three Evils that the World System has developed around us that has integrated itself into the church over the last hundred years. RD/ Judges 024

The first is Darwinian evolution; it’s no chance that all three of these systems had their origin in mid-19th century rationalistic and idealistic thought.  They all started within basically ten years of one another.  You had Darwin and the birth of modern scientific Darwinian evolution; you have Freud and the birth of modern psychology and you have the birth, also of Augusta Compton and some others, the birth of modern sociology, and these three systems have attacked the church, and of course evolution attacks the whole foundation of the first 11 chapters of Genesis and its historicity, and we don’t have time to go into all of that but if you take out the historical validity of the first eleven chapters of Genesis you destroy everything else in the Bible because every other doctrine in the Bible has its roots in what takes place in the first eleven chapters of Genesis because every other doctrine in the Bible has its roots in what takes place in  the first 11 chapters of Genesis.  And without that historical foundation everything else is false.  God always works in history and grounds his work in the objective realm of history and so we have to accept that.

The second thing is in psychology and a lot of people have problems with that because we have become a therapeutic society.  Many, many historians recognize that and I think because the emphasis on psychology in American culture has produced what Christopher Lasch calls the narcissistic society and we our self absorbed.  One psychologist, by the name of Paul Vitz, who’s professor of psychology at NYU stated in his book, Psychology is Religion, that: “psychology as a religion exists I great strength throughout the United States.  It is deeply antichristian yet is extensively supported by schools, universities and social programs, financed by taxes collected from Christians.”  See, his point is psychology, the very term says the study of the soul, and psychology comes along and claims that on the basis of pure empirical data they have authority to determine how the soul functions and how it can solve problems.  The problem is the Bible claims to have exclusive domain over defining what the soul is, what the problems are, i.e. sin, and what the solutions are which began with Jesus Christ on the cross who died as a substitute for our sins that we might have eternal life.  And so all problems ultimately flow from sin and unless you deal with the solution to sin there is nothing…all you do otherwise is just sort of deal with symptoms and you never deal with the underlying solution.

Another writer has stated that “psychology sits at the very center of contemporary society as an international colossus whose ranks number in the hundreds of thousands.  It’s experimental animals are obliging, even grateful human race.  We live in a civilization of such as never before; man is preoccupied with self. We’ve become narcissistic.  As a Protestant ethic is weakened in Western society the confused citizen has turned to the only alternative he knows, the psychological expert who claims there is a new scientific standard of behavior to replace fading traditions.  Mouthing the holy name of science, the psychological expert claims to know all.  This new truth is fed to us continuously from birth to the grave.”  That’s a quote from Martin Gross, The Psychological Society.

Well, that’s one attempt to try to solve problems by taking empirical data and making a system out of it for solving problems.

The third way in which our society is attacked is sociology and that happens in the church growth movement—let’s go out and basically analyze a certain culture, certain segments of society, why they’re not going to church and on the basis of sociological principles then we’re going to build a church that will fit those needs that this society has determined they want in a local church and that’s basically…to me the analogy is of a school board saying okay, let’s poll all the kinder­garteners and nursery school kids and find out what they want in a curriculum, then we’ll devise our curriculum based upon what they want.  You don’t let the children run the household.  Parents and educators should know what kids need to learn and you don’t let the, especially a carnal apostate society dictate what the church ought to look like and what they ought to be involved in.  But that’s what happens in an apostate culture, is our value system completely shifts, we call right wrong and wrong right, and we’ve lost faith and confidence in the Word of God and because we are spiritually ignorant and Biblically ignorant then we continuously make bad decisions and the result is that our lives are destroyed.

Worldiness

Worldiness     Rev. 087b

Revelation 3:22 NASB “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches

1)      The biblical concept of worldliness describes the collection of ideas, philosophies, religions, standards, values, purposes, and methods to achieve those ends which characterize a culture or sub-culture.

Everyone is a philosopher, everyone has a philosophy of life. Some have a well thought out structured intelligent philosophy of life, others have a disorganized philosophy of life, but everyone has a philosophy of life. Everybody is a theologian. Everybody has a view of God, has a view of man, has a view of nature, and we are all philosophers; we all have this philosophy of life. The issue is, is it biblical or is it not? So it is a collection of ideas, philosophies, religions; it runs the gamut from religions of morality or pseudo-morality, religions of thought, metaphysical religions such as Near Eastern religions like Hinduism; all kinds of different religions, including atheism. If theism is religious, then its opposite, atheism, is also a religion. It is that prefix “a” that comes out of the Greek—the Greek calls it an alpha privative—that makes it a negative, so theism is belief in a God and atheism is a lack of belief in a God. Think about this: “musing” is an old English word for thinking. So what is amusement? So you don’t have to think! Everybody has standards and use those words like ought and should, and that immediately indicates some sort of hidden value system there, even if they say there are no absolutes. So everyone has standards, everyone sooner or later says, That’s right, or that’s wrong if something offends them. There is always some value system, and it is always oriented toward some future goal, some purpose, some direction. So we have certain purpose goals and direction to achieve that. What is a sub-culture? Your family is a sub-culture. The people you work with at work, that is a sub-culture. Every work place has a culture. That sub-culture has values and it has purposes and it has all kinds of things related to this. It has a philosophy of its own existence and its own importance and where it is going. All of that relates to this whole concept of worldliness.

2)      As such this worldview incorporates and is expressed in every aspect of a culture’s views of the individual and social relations.

How do you view the importance of a person? If you are an American you have a high value for the individual, the individual is more important than anything else. But if you go to other cultures the individual is nothing, the society as a whole is what is important. In North Korea the individual has no value whatsoever, it is all about the state. It affects theories of knowledge and then, of course, its corollaries, theories of learning. This would dominate educational theory: how do people learn? What are the problems that come up with learning? Why are people ignorant? Why are very intelligent people ignorant of the gospel, and willingly ignorant of the gospel? Intelligence has nothing to do with acceptance or rejection of Christianity. The issue really isn’t really intelligence, it is not IQ, it is not education or lack of it; it is more. People don’t want to know about God, they are suppressing that in unrighteousness. That is part of factoring in this whole concept of knowledge and learning.

Furthermore we have expressions of reality in visual and performing arts. That is always a tough one for people because if you go around the world people say it is just their music and it doesn’t really have anything to do with our philosophy. But it all came out of philosophy originally. Science, technology, literature, law, all of this comes out of a worldview. The goal of the Christian is to start with the Scripture and rewrite all of it. It is not just learning the gospel and getting saved and learning how to confess your sins, it is taking the Word and learning it inside and out and then taking it into all the different fields of endeavour that everybody in the body of Christ is involved with, whether it is science, law, finance, teaching, education, whatever it is, and working out the foundation of biblical thought into those intellectual dimensions.

3)      When the Christian operates within this thought structure—the thought structure of the human viewpoint culture—whether it is a primitive culture in the back woods of Africa or in the sophisticated culture on Fifth Avenue in New York, it doesn’t matter. When the Christian operates within this thought structure, even though it may overlap in many ways with a biblical worldview, it is still classified as worldliness. There are a lot of churches in this country that are biblically sound on the gospel, and might be close to biblically sound on sanctification, but the structure in which they live and problem-solving relate is totally worldly. Their methodology is worldly, and so they are trying to do God’s work or work out God’s plan according to man’s ways because they don’t want to think any more deeply than just the surface. Evangelicalism in the last hundred years has become increasingly more superficial and dedicated to the moment rather than the long-term plan of God.

When did Jesus overcome worldliness? He did so in the temptation. Matthew 4, Some initial observations. This is at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, the initiation of His public ministry. He has just been baptized by John the Baptist in the River Jordan, which indicates His being set apart to that ministry, His authentication by God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. Immediately after that He is taken by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. So the first thing we notice is that he is being led into this position by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can lead us into positions of testing for a purpose.

Yom Kippur

Yom Kippur      RD/Heb 140b

So Yom Kippur is a day of solemn rest to teach humility.  So he comes in.  He offers or presents for approval as it were a bull for sin offering and a ram for a burnt offering.

So I have – I’m going to run through the 14 steps very quickly.

   1. First, he gathers the bull for a sin offering and the ram for a guilt offering.  He goes out and picks them make sure they are without spot of blemish.  Then he brings them in as it were presents them before God.    2. Second, he is to wear the holy linen tunic and undergarments.  He doesn’t wear his high priestly garb.  It’s absolutely gorgeous.  It is brilliant.  It’s spectacular.  The colors are impressive, but it sets him apart from the people. What does he have to do?  He has to take that off.  He washes himself and he just puts on linen garments just like everybody else.  The thing I thought of was what I say every month when we have the Lord’s Table.  What the Lord’s Table does is it’s the focus of humility for everyone of us because no matter who we are, no matter how wealthy you are, how poor you are, how talented you are or how much talent you lack, no matter how smart you are, educated or uneducated - we all have to go to the cross to get saved.  Everybody – no matter what your natural talents are!  You all get to heaven the same way and that’s trust in Christ.  That’s what’s happening here.  He has to strip off all the outer manifestations of his office and he dresses in a very common way in the linen undergarments and then he can move forward.    3. The third thing that happens – he presents but doesn’t sacrifice the bulls. He walks in.  He’s got the bull and ram.  He goes through the whole washing thing; then he takes them before the tent of meeting for approval as it were.  He offers them, but he does not sacrifice the bulls as a sin offering for himself in verse 6.  He doesn’t sacrifice it until verse 11.  And he presents it to make purification or atonement for himself and his family.    4. Then having done that he goes back out.  He gets two goats - one will be the scapegoat and one will be the sin offering.  He just brings them in at this point.  He also brings with him the ram for the burnt offering.    5. Next he sacrifices the bull as the sin offering in verse 11.  The ram is still alive; the two goats are still alive.  Now this has all been outside in the outer courtyard.  Now he’s going to take his first trip inside.

NKJ Leviticus 16:11 " And Aaron shall bring the bull of the sin offering, which is for himself, and make atonement for himself and for his house, and shall kill the bull as the sin offering which is for himself.

   6. Then he takes the firepan (the censer full of coals) and two hands full of incense to go inside the veil to put the incense on the fire to begin to filling the Holy of Holies with a cloud of incense.  That’s going to take time.  Then he goes back out so he is outside again (a second time).    7. Then he takes some of the blood of the bull which he’s already sacrificed.  Now he’s got to butcher the bull.  That takes time.  (Having just gone deer hunting and having done that, I forgot how long it takes.  It takes awhile.)  So he has to butcher the bull and he takes the blood of the bull and now he goes inside for the second trip and he puts the blood on the mercy seat first on the east side which is the front side sprinkles it 7 times with his finger just like this on the ground in verse 14.  Then he goes out and he’s out in the courtyard for a third time.    8. Then he sacrifices the goat of the sin offering which is for the people and now he takes the blood of the goat inside the veil and puts a splatter on the mercy seat and then 7 times with his finger in front of the mercy seat for the people.  That’s in verse 15.

In verse 16 we read:

NKJ Leviticus 16:16 "So he shall make atonement for the Holy Place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgressions, for all their sins; and so he shall do for the tabernacle of meeting which remains among them in the midst of their uncleanness.

   9. Then he goes back out – this is the fourth time he’s in the courtyard.  He goes out and he makes purification of the altar.   Ah!  But what altar is this? 

NKJ Leviticus 16:18 "And he shall go out to the altar that is before the LORD,

What altar is that?  That’s the bronze altar.

 and make atonement for it, and shall take some of the blood of the bull and some of the blood of the goat, and put it on the horns of the altar all around.

Now most commentators will connect that putting the blood on the horns of the altar with Exodus 30.  At the end it said:

NKJ Exodus 30:10 "And Aaron shall make atonement upon its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement; once a year he shall make atonement upon it throughout your generations. It is most holy to the LORD."

But in Leviticus there is only one time the word altar means altar of incense.  It says the altar of fragrant incense at the beginning of Leviticus 4.  In the other 80 times that the word altar is used in Leviticus, it refers to the bronze altar.  So what he’s saying here is – so what happens is he’s going to put blood on the horns of the altar of incense because of the Exodus passage and he’s going to put blood here.   This is the purification of the bronze altar and he’ll put blood on the horns of the bronze altar. That was the 9th point.

  10.  When he finishes all that he then takes the live goat, confesses over it all the sins and iniquities of the sons of Israel (that must have taken awhile) and releases it into the wilderness.  That’s verse 21.   11. Then he removes his garments, leaves them there, bathes his body completely, and puts on his regular priestly garments.   12. Then he offers the ram as his burnt offering.  Verse 24   13. Then he offers up the fat of the sin offering from the bull on the altar.  Verse 25   14. The bull of the sin offering and the goat of the sin offering – that’s what’s left – are taken outside of the camp.  The hides are burned.  The flesh and refuse are burned in a fire.  The one who burns them (which isn’t the high priest but probably another priest) has to wash all of his clothes because they’ve been identified with this impurity that’s on the sin offering.  He has to take off all of his clothes, wash his clothes, and bathe his body completely before he can come back into the camp.  So it pictures complete removal of sin which is what Christ did on the cross.  He completely removes the sin.

But, what about those intentional sins?  See there were the sacrifices for the unintentional sins.  But, what about David when he sins with Bathsheba and he has a conspiracy to murder and eventually accomplishes the murder of Uriah?    That’s a sin of the high hand.  He has to go directly to the Lord on the basis of the blood on the mercy seat on the Day of Atonement.  That’s what covers the sins of the high hand.

There is forgiveness for every sin.  There’s a sin offering and trespass offering for those that are unintentional.  But the only thing that handles it is that yearly blood that’s put on the mercy seat.  Now all of that is important for when we continue our study in Hebrews 9 which we’ll get to next time and we’ll continue to go through this.

We’ll review this again and again because that’s what Hebrews 9 is all about – is applying that to what is happening in the spiritual life.  We see those patterns there even though we’re not sacrificing.  We still need to be cleansed and our life after salvation is based on understanding the realities of what these Old Testament pictures depict so that we can press on.  That was the problem with the Hebrews.  They didn’t want to press on in their Christian life.

Zoomorphism

Zoomorphism

This is what is called a zoomorphism, it attributes to God something that applies to an animal that God doesn’t actually possess.

Test

What is a Test?

1)      God picks the time and the place and it often happens when we are just not ready for it. A test is, first of all, an examination or an evaluation of what we have learned. God teaches us something, we learn some doctrine, and then we immediately are involved in some circumstance or situation where we have to apply what we learn. It is the aggregate of divine viewpoint that accumulates in our souls. A test is not only an examination or an evaluation of the doctrine that we know, it is also an opportunity to apply the doctrine that we do know. A test may not be a difficult situation, it may be just an opportunity to minister, to witness, to serve the Lord in some way, and the test is how we are going to respond to that opportunity. So it is also an opportunity to apply doctrine to a situation, and event, an experience in life with a view toward our service in the Christian life.

2)      We pass these tests through the use of ten spiritual skills. These spiritual skills are things that we practice over and over again. The use of the word “skill” emphasizes learning the mechanics. Skill involves repetition and practice.

3)      There are different kinds of tests.

a)              There are people tests, all kinds of people tests. There is authority tests, family tests, marriage tests, work tests, tests with friends, tests with co-workers, romance.

b)              Then there are system tests. These often involve people, the place we work, the school we go to, where there are certain policies and procedures.

c)              There are health tests, crises in life, weather tests, financial tests.

d)              Tests of service. This is related to our priesthood and our ambassadorship. These are tests related to prayer, the study of doctrine, putting a priority on our relationship with God. The priesthood aspect has to do with our relationship to God; the ambassadorship aspect has to do with our relationship to other believers and to the world.

4)      The use of the spiritual skills is not an end in itself. For example, confession of sin is not an end in itself. All you are doing is getting back in fellowship. You are supposed to be going somewhere; there is direction. People have often commented that if you don’t know what your target is you certainly won’t hit it. Most people don’t have a target. The experience is getting out of fellowship and getting back in fellowship, and they don’t understand that getting back in fellowship is a means of recovery to go somewhere. They are not spending enough time in the house to finish building the house. The goal is to get the house finished. The spiritual skills are not an end in themselves, they are the means the Holy Spirit is going to produce spiritual growth and maturity for a purpose of serving the Lord.

5)      We have five basic spiritual skills which are all part of our package. When we master these the more advanced spiritual skills automatically fall in.

6)      We need to think, not just react emotionally. We have to develop the ability to think under pressure. God chooses the situation, the time, the place, related to particular tests. There are two words here to remember. The first is adversity. Adversity is the outside pressure of events of circumstances of people, as well as the pressure of our own emotions and son nature (that is internal). How many times do we have sinful thoughts or ideas or lust patterns, whatever they are, that just pop up in your soul from the source of your own sin nature? It is not an outside pressure, it is an inner pressure from the sin nature to sin. So adversity is not only the outside pressure, but also pressure from our own emotions, anger, bitterness, fear, worry, etc. We have a choice of how we are going to respond to that. We can be in a situation where we become fearful, but then the test is whether we are going to act on the fear or choose to apply biblical promises to the fear and move out in trust and the faith-rest drill. The second word is stress. Stress is the result of the internal reaction in our soul to the outside pressure. It is the outside pressure that often reveals the flaws and weaknesses in our own soul, in our own ability to handle circumstances.

Confession: This is the foundation because confession just gets us back in the game. Confession isn’t the game. When you sin you get taken out of the game. When you confess sin you are put back in the game, but the issue is to spend maximum amount of time in the game. So confession is simply a means of recovery so that we can get back into the game, and the game for the Christian life is spiritual growth toward maturity.